The Importance of Being Protein
by Thesaurusgirl
Summary: Guess Who's coming to dinner? Marcus and Barnes discover Skynet may be the least of their problems.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Before I write anything else, we all already know but I'll say it anyway. I have no rights or connection financial, creative or otherwise to any of the Terminator franchise or any of the characters. Original characters are mine. ****Whew! Always feel better once that's out of the way. This one's been rolling around in my head for a while now. Think I'll let it out. It's kind of creepy with it being all alone up there. **

The Importance of Being Protein

Chapter 1 – "I Don't Want to Kiss You Either"

The heavy steel door groaned open, creaky from ill use. Colonel Anthony Barnes squinted to block out the stabbing light. The outline of a man interrupted the angled rays pouring thru the widening aperture. It had been so grossly dark inside the cell that any light at all beat a tattoo on his eyeballs. Gradually his offended vision was able to discern the distinctive form of Marcus Wright, grinning with satisfaction at the sight of Barnes, hands and feet bound to the metal wall. Smoke wafted about in the hallway, framing the one person Barnes had not been expecting to see.

"Now isn't this just a sight for sore eyes?" Marcus commented with dark humor.

"I got nothing to say to you" the captive growled, foul mood multiplied by the identity of his visitor. The Colonel turned his head away, focusing on a corner of the dank cell, embarrassed by his thoughts of moments earlier.

"Well," Marcus returned, "you might want to think of something Sparky, cause right now" the ex con went on dryly "I'm the only one willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Ain't that a kick in the head?"

"I didn't do it!" Barnes protested fiercely, full of angry denial. "_You_ believe I'm innocent?"

Wright laughed cynically. "I didn't say I thought you were innocent. I said I thought you _may _not be guilty. It's not the same thing. Trust me" he whispered with a crooked devilish smirk, "I'm in a position to know the difference. Brace yourself and don't yell. Losing these chains is going to be more than a little painful. I'm an expert on that too."

After giving the warning, Marcus took the base of one of Barnes shackles in both his hands, put his right foot on the cold steel by the prisoner's side, took a breath and yanked hard. The restraints used to contain Barnes were as makeshift as the room he'd been confined in. Neither was designed to win a tug of war with cybernetic muscles. Protesting, the metal and riveting gave way and the chains broke free, dangling uselessly.

A muffled moan indicated Marcus had been correct. Barnes's chaffed wrist, still caught in the cuff, punished him for the change in position. Marcus freed the other arm in the same manner, eliciting a similar reaction. Applying sufficient force, the cuffs were soon in pieces. Wright dropped to one knee, making equally short work of the ankle chains.

"Ok sunshine, let's blow out of here" Marcus told his newly liberated companion.

"Why'd you come back?" Barnes wanted to know, after hastily throwing on the socks and boots Marcus brought with him. "You could have left me in there. We both know you really wanted to. I would have left you" he admitted plainly.

"Don't get carried away thanking me, Barnes. And I never left. I've been around you just didn't see me, neither did they. That was sort of what I intended" Marcus hissed sourly, hurrying on cat feet down the dim hallway ahead of Barnes. He gingerly eased his head around the corner, checking to make sure the passage ahead of them was empty. He saw no one. Better and better. "We're out of here, now! It's almost breakfast time, and if there was ever a meal you'd want pass on, it's this one. And that's not all you want to avoid." He gave a grisly laugh at Barnes bafflement. "I'll explain on the road. Your jury's going to be waking up anytime now. We'd better be long gone by the time they get that way. Now shut up and run."

**TEN DAYS AGO…**

"This is the third platoon to disappear in that area in six months sir. And these aren't combat losses General. This isn't Skynet's doing. One day we're in contact and they're transmitting position and status per procedure. By next check in they're gone, totally off the map with no indication of how or why. No ops reports; no calls for help, nothing. No thing. It's like our people are getting sucked into a vacuum. We have to come up with some kind of way of finding out what's befalling them."

Connor nodded grimly in agreement. Major David Perry counted as one of John Connor's most able and experienced combat commanders, giving his words that much more weight with the Resistance leader.

Though undersized by pre-Judgment Day standards, three platoons represented the loss of between forty-five and sixty fighting men and women, a loss Connor could ill afford.

"So what's your suggestion Perry?" Major Matt Garrison asked, "send in another platoon after 'em? 'Cause I recommend against that. We do that sir, we might as well write that one off too!"

Garrison and Perry were equal in rank and polar opposites in personality. Steady and confident, Perry led by example, trusting those under his command would follow. Garrison was a holdover from the old command tier. It worked out that he'd happened to be off ship when Skynet's H-K torpedoed the submarine harboring many of humanity's remaining military leaders. Evading the fate of his shipmates, Garrison eventually wound up slotted in as one of John Connor's adjutants, but he didn't only want that. Matt Garrison wanted farther up the command chain. To get there, he needed more of John Connor's ear and David Perry out of his way. Almost automatically (and sometimes just for the hell of it, Connor suspected) Garrison would come down on the opposite side of any opinion Perry expressed.

Thanks to Sarah Connor's relentless preparation her son was a keen judge of character. Matt Garrison didn't fool him for a second. Connor still assessed the man's words dispassionately. Garrison might remind him a sometimes a little too much of the late, mostly unlamented Colonel Olsen, but Connor kept him around anyway. Sometimes a bunion was valuable _because_ it hurt. Besides, on rare occasions, even somebody like Garrison could have a point. Unfortunately, John reflected ruefully, this might be one of those times.

Connor wanted to find and stop whatever enemy had stalked and claimed his missing personnel, but found his reluctance to commit another group of fighters to the effort equally high.

"I _do_ have an idea, sir" Perry said, refusing to be intimidated. "And I agree with Major Garrison. Sending in a large number isn't the answer. I suggest a small strike force, maybe even a two man team. That might be small enough to slip in under the radar-"

"Under the radar of what?" Garrison interrupted sarcastically, determined to score points. "You seem to be forgetting we have no idea what we're facing-"

"That's enough, Major Garrison" Connor declared flatly. He encouraged healthy debate, but nobody's ego got indulged at the expense of his soldiers. Besides, it never hurt to remind everybody where the buck stopped.

"Private Campbell" Connor called, summoning a young fighter, "Please track down Marcus Wright. Find Colonel Barnes too. Ask them both to report to the command bunker."

**THREE DAYS AGO…**

From his vantage point in the hills overlooking the city, Marcus Wright viewed the burnt paper remains of Las Vegas. A wicked sense of déjà vu possessed him.

…_Stepping out from behind the tattered remnants of the __HOLLYWOOD__ sign perched atop Mount Lee, Marcus stared down at the panorama of destruction. The hollow silence chilled him. There were no sounds, no people…no life. L.A. was shriveled and dead as if hammered by the sulfuric wrath of a remorseless god. This latest shock threatened to send him fleeing back across the endless desert to pour his body back into the black hole from which he'd arisen during last night's storm. Everything about this bizarre new existence stupefied him. What madness had struck down the world? Had this devastation been universal? Why did he continue? Or did he? Was he alive or caught in the throes of some afterlife phantasm? Maybe this was Hell, or at least his own personal version. Only one way to find out for sure. He started his descent… _

"Let's keep moving" Barnes said, catching up to and passing Marcus after completing his radio check in. "We need to get under cover before nightfall."

They made the outer rim of the city around sunset. Within shouting distance of Nellis AFB, Vegas suffered a virtual direct hit on Judgment Day. The glittering hotel casinos and rivers of neon comprising the gambling mecca melted into slag in the space of a few horrifying minutes. One armed bandit junkies with their coated plastic cups full of quarters, gaudily attired showgirls and families on a once in a lifetime vacation all died before they knew what hit 'em. The roiling mass of superheated air, flame and radiation bore down on the town, sparing many a loser in denial from ever having to pay up. Here and there, the lucky schmuck on a winning streak would never get to cash in. The party was over in an instant as the steel girders which formed the skeletons of the towering glass temples folded in on themselves, entombing their occupants once and for all. The ultimate crap out. Only this time, the house didn't win.

Much like his entry into L. A., Marcus found the going problematic in Las Vegas. He and Barnes had to deal with huge piles of rubble, bones, crushed dried out human husks, mountains of rusted cars and trucks, all the usual obstacles. This long afterward, people still mostly avoided the cities, suspicious that Skynet would seek them there. They were right to be cautious. Most of Nevada was back in human hands, controlled by the Resistance, but limited air power made it difficult to prevent all over flights by H-K's. The one time adult playground remained desolate, patrolled only by four legged residents and the desert wind howling in and out of the shells of blasted buildings.

Striding along warily, his shadow lengthened by the slowly disappearing sun, Marcus reluctantly acknowledged an unexpected sense of loss. He had his own personal connection to this place. Once, after a very profitable job, he'd experienced a memorable stopover in Vegas, gambling and screwing his way from one end of the Vegas strip to the other. Between the women, the high stakes poker and the small lake of expensive booze he'd consumed, he'd probably blown maybe 200 K. But it had been worth it, he remembered with an inward smile. Well worth it. Skynet's emotionless destruction depressed and angered him, and his hatred of the AI grew.

Mounds of shattered glass crunched underfoot as they moved into the guts of the wasted metropolis. Shells of buildings loomed over them, capturing and holding the fading light as the sun disappeared below the horizon.

"This is as good a place to stop as any" Barnes commented gruffly picking out a rough shelter for the night after giving it a careful visual inspection. Human bones littered the site, but that was pretty much unavoidable. Since neither he nor Marcus had any way of knowing for sure what else might be waiting, the two men entered cautiously. Barnes years of experience as a Marine and a Resistance fighter enabled him to move quietly; he admitted, though grudgingly, watching Wright, that there wasn't anything he could teach the other man about the art of stealth.

They settled on a spot within the hollow, largely roofless edifice as out of the wind as they could manage. "What's next? Where do we go from here?" Marcus asked.

"Our people came thru Vegas before they dropped out of sight. We trace their path. I'm gonna get some sleep" Barnes answered, promptly doing just that, pulling his cap down to shield his eyes and corking right off, blocking out Wright's presence.

Marcus let it go. A man of few words his own self he didn't miss the needless babble, 'specially since he and his traveling companion weren't exactly BFF's. He took a quick peruse of his night's lodging, able to see more than Barnes would have seen in the darkness.

Wonder what this was before JD? He speculated idly. Some kind of night club maybe, possibly a former "gentlemen's club" he considered, eyeing the half melted leavings of what appeared to be a stripper's pole coming up out of what remained of a stage. Hope whoever was on when the balloon went up had a bunch of fifty's stuffed into her G. That being his final thought, he closed his eyes and stretched out to get some shut-eye.

* * *

The damn machine was trying to kill him! Anthony Barnes awoke in near total blackness with one of Marcus Wright's hands wrapped around his windpipe and the other clamped across his mouth in an unbreakable grip. He could just barely breathe and could make no sound at all. Barnes clawed ferociously for his nearby sidearm, determined to die fighting for his life.

Bending close enough so his lips were almost touching Barnes's ear, Marcus whispered urgently. "Shut up and stop moving stupid! We have company! You're gonna bring it over here!"

With Marcus's face less than an inch from his Barnes could see the imperative in the burning blue eyes.

Once certain the other man understood how important it was that he not move too suddenly or make noise, Wright removed his hands. "It will hear you! Just be still!" Marcus said, barely audible.

Expectin or 800, Barnes moved oh so slowly into a sitting position only to discover the "it" Wright referred to was no terminator at all but something as potentially deadly. Highlighted by the silvery moon of the Nevada night, powerful muscles rippling under the stripped coat, a fully grown Bengal tiger weighing in at maybe five hundred pounds padded effortlessly thru the destroyed interior. Paying no attention to the old bones and other detritus, the huge cat alternately sniffed the ground and threw its' head back baring three inch canines in a flehmen grimace.

Marcus couldn't understand why the animal hadn't come straight for them. It had to have caught their scent by now. A chest deep rumble moved with the beast as it steadily grew closer. The building serving as their hotel for the night was like every other in the city, collapsed like a house of cards. Basically they were sleeping on top of what once had apparently been a spiral staircase. To get at them, the Bengal would have to pull off a sizable leap upward, but that'd be a snap for a tiger of this size.

"How did a tiger get here?" Barnes whispered. "This ain't no India."

"You're asking me? Like I'm supposed to know?" Marcus whispered back. "Maybe it's a leftover from one of the acts. Does it really matter now?"

Unknowingly, Marcus had partially hit on the truth. In its heyday, at least one of Las Vegas' most popular stage shows included performances by live tigers and lions. Audiences were wowed by the chemistry and mastery some humans apparently had with and over the dangerous creatures. And those weren't the only ones. In a city where image and lady luck had mad sex every night, some of their baccarat and blackjack millionaire babies came to consider owning a tiger a symbol of status. Housed largely in menageries and private zoos outside of the city or underground, the orange and black tabby's fared better than their humans on the fateful day. In the course of time, with no people around, those able to do so broke out of their confinement, freed to roam unrestrained, breed and more importantly, stalk what they pleased. The weaker and slower of them fell prey to Skynet's mechanized killers or to the fallout or disease, or starved because their caregivers had perished. Those few that survived adapted, thrived, mated and produced cubs. Marcus and Barnes feline caller was from one of those litters. Totally wild, its instincts guided the hunt. And it was hungry.

"Can you see it from where you are?" Barnes asked Marcus softly. He'd lost sight of it in the very dim light, with the creature moving about.

"Yes, I can" Marcus replied as hushed as he possibly could. His enhanced vision had no problem picking up the alarming newcomer.

"What's it doing now?"

"It's looking up" Marcus replied thru clenched teeth. "I think it knows we're here. Thanks for not shutting up."

"You think you could take it?" Barnes asked him. Maybe the tin man might be of some use after all, he was thinking.

"What!?" Marcus said, no longer bothering to keep his voice down now, since the animal had located them.

"Do you think you can take it?" Barnes repeated emphatically, his meaning obvious.

"Barnes" Marcus answered testily, '"if you're suggesting that I take on a tiger, you can forget it. 'Cause that ain't gonna happen."

"You're the one with Skynet's hyper-alloy underneath the fake skin. Same metal as a terminator. One of them could handle it with no problem" Barnes taunted.

"Barnes, understand me very clearly" Marcus rasped, incensed. "There is no, got that, no way I'm going toe to paw with a tiger! And my skin is not fake! _And_ I am _not_ a terminator!" He let out an exasperated breath. Barnes picked the worst possible time to go all "You're just another machine and we both know it" on him.

"What are you doing?" Marcus noticed the other man's movements toward their cache of weapons.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" Anthony Barnes didn't add the word "stupid" but his tone said it for him. "I'm getting my guns ready in case I have to kill that thing."

"For what, being a tiger?" Marcus questioned indignantly. "There's a door behind us. At least I think it used to be. Let's see if we can get it open and get thru it."

"We don't know what's on the other side of it" Barnes said.

"We know what's on this side of it" Marcus countered. He moved around Barnes to investigate the possible escape hatch more closely. Made from some kind of dark hardwood, the hinges were heavily rusted and it was a safe bet it hadn't been used since the nukes flew. It might be a challenge to open for someone else, but Wright was fairly confident he'd have a lot less problem than most.

"What if it comes for us before you can get that door open?" Barnes wanted to know.

"Then we're going to have to run for it" Marcus Wright didn't add the word "stupid" but his tone said it for him.

"You can't outrun a tiger" Barnes scoffed.

"I don't have to outrun the _tiger_" Marcus answered with a frosty smile. "I'm going. You can stay here if you want."

The long neglected door gave a banshee screech as Marcus brute forced it open. Inexorably, the gap widened. Circling down below, the ravenous animal alerted to the sound. Amber eyes glowing, its tail began to swish back and forth ominously. The animal backed off, bunching into a crouch.

"Hurry up, man! Hurry up! In about ten seconds that thing is going to be on us!"

"You want to do this?" Marcus grunted, fighting with the door. Come on, just because it's been seventeen years.

He finally gained enough of an opening to slip in just as the cat bounded up with a rage filled scream at the sight of its meal escaping!

Kicking, punching and elbowing thru a decade and a half of debris, Marcus was knocked to his knees as Barnes bulled in pulling the bag with their rations, guns and ammo with him, just beyond reach of the angry cat's swipe with four inch retractable claws.

"RRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRR!" The snarl reverberated within the space.

Working together, the men pulled the door closed, hearing the scrape of dagger sharp claws against the door. The tiger threw itself again and again against the barrier, yowling and shrieking in frustration. Its claws raked the door, an unnerving sound.

"Wonder if it'll hold" Marcus speculated as they pushed their way down the trashed passage.

"I'm not sticking around to find out" Colonel Barnes told him. "That thing knows the layout a lot better than we do. I don't want to be here when it gives up on trying to get thru that door and comes at us from another direction."

That makes two of us, Marcus thought. Wright had always liked animals better than most people. You weren't always watching your back around them for one thing. With an animal, what you saw was what you got. You knew a snake was a snake when you picked it up. Not so with the beings on two legs he reasoned. They were the deadliest predator of all, at least until Skynet. He should know, having rightfully been considered pretty dangerous himself by many, and that was before Cyberdyne or Serena Kogan. He didn't want to hurt the cat. He definitely didn't want to have to kill the big pussy but he knew it had no such concerns. It just wanted to eat, and he and Banes looked like food.

Okay kitty, just let us out of here and then you can go find something else to nosh on. I don't want to be the one to stick a fork in you, so don't make me.

"I've got good news and bad news" Marcus told Barnes as they reached the end of the narrow, trash littered passage.

"What's the good news?" Barnes asked, checking behind him to make sure the cat wasn't there.

"No tiger down there" Marcus answered, surveying the area just beyond the opening.

"Alright, then the bad news can't be that bad" Barnes reasoned. No tiger waiting for them down below was good enough for him.

"There's about fifty feet between us and the ground" Marcus clarified. "So unless one of us is Spiderman and the other sprouts a set of wings, I'd say we got a problem. How much rope is in that bag?"

"Not enough" Colonel Barnes declared. "You're the one with a computer in your head. Any bright ideas HAL?"

"Barnes" Marcus snapped, "don't make me put my foot up your- never mind, we don't have time." He considered for handful of seconds, rubbing his chin. "Take off your clothes."

"What?! Aw, Hell naw!" Barnes refused.

"We need to lengthen the rope, genius! Don't worry, I don't want to kiss you either!" Marcus shot back, disgusted.

Stripped down to their boxers, the two worked tying the clothing to the length of rope Barnes pulled from the duffel. Once the knots were as tightly secure as Marcus could make them, they lowered their improvisation out of the opening.

"Still going to have about ten feet to jump" Barnes observed critically.

"You want to go first or follow me down?" Marcus asked.

"Your move, Roboballs" Barnes told him, gesturing to the dangling rope.

If I rip his head off I'll have too much explaining to do, Marcus thought, grabbing hold of the nylon rope to begin the trip down. Besides, if the tiger shows up, I'll need something to throw at it. Marcus slung the duffel over his shoulder wincing at the inevitable clatter. Climbing with it on his back was going to be more than a little awkward but he'd done it before.

They shouldn't have to worry about the rope holding. This particular type tested out at about twice their combined weight, even with Wright's unique body structure factored in. The clothing extensions might be another matter but since they didn't have a choice, they might as well get on with it. He continued down. After a few seconds, he could feel the rope absorb the strain as Barnes climbed out and started down.

"Wonder if any of our people ran into Sher Khan" Barnes puffed, breathless with effort.

"She- what are you talking about?" Marcus questioned irritably.

"Sher Khan was the tiger in-" Barnes began to explain sarcastically.

"I know who Sher Khan was" Marcus hissed from between clenched teeth. "I've known how to read since I was four. And I doubt it. Something tells me it didn't survive this long by taking on a large party of armed humans. Probably just avoided them. You want to shut up and keep going? We're almost down."

They reached the end of their amalgamation, jumped to the rubble strewn ground and dressed quickly in their one outfit apiece of spare clothing, keeping an eye out for their furred stalker. The rope and other clothes would have to be left behind since there was no way to retrieve them.

"RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWRRRR RRRR!" The furious roar split the night.

"That was close!" Barnes spun around in the darkness, trying to look in every direction at once. They armed themselves.

"I know. Let's get out here before it finds us!" Marcus said, resituating the duffel. Without waiting for Barnes to decide, Wright chose a direction and started off at a trot. If Barnes objected, he didn't say, just concentrated on keeping up.

The Colonel had his eye on their back trail. Visibility was poor and he was trying to watch for the hungry animal. The footing was treacherous and Barnes had to watch where he stepped, so when Wright stopped without warning, Barnes, caught off guard, collided with Marcus's broad back forcefully.

"What the-what'd you stop for?! We got to clear this area! That thing is still trying to find us!"

"We're no longer alone" Marcus said levelly, explaining the abrupt halt.

"Is it the tiger?" Barnes said, fumbling for his gun.

"No, not the tiger" Marcus answered, still calm and quiet.

"Then what?" Barnes stepped around him. He said nothing more. He and Marcus were surrounded by grim faced strangers packing plenty of heat. The next few minutes were likely to become very interesting.

* * *

**Author's Note: That does it for chapter one. The tiger and lion act in Vegas was for real, some of you might have even seen it. It's ended now, but it existed at one time. As for the other people who kept big cats as pets, unfortunately, that's probably true too. Stupid, but true. Don't get me started. See ya next chapter (I hope). **

**P.S. Reviews welcome. Thanks. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Here we go again. I have no ties, creative connection, claims or rights to any of the Terminator characters or franchise…blah, blah, blah. Lawyers huh? What are ya gonna do? Original characters are mine though. Oh well, on with the story.**

* * *

The Importance of Being Protein

Chapter 2-Down the Rabbit Hole

The two opposing parties eyed one another in silence for some seconds. No stranger to armed standoffs, Marcus kept his hands in full view, well away from his guns. To his right, taut and watchful, Barnes did the same.

The tense stalemate broke when a tall scruffy man in the center stepped forward. About ten years older than Marcus's age, (his real age, and not how old he looked), the man had a short rough beard and grey streaked dark hair that brushed the collar of his long coat. Shifting his weapon to his back by its sling, he extended his right hand. The glove covering it had the fingertips missing.

"See you boys met Tigger" he said by way of introduction as he shook Marcus's hand. The voice was low pitched with a western twang. They could all hear the screams of the thwarted feline somewhere nearby.

"We'd all best be moving along. No sense in aggravating him." the still unnamed man stated, tuning around and starting off. Keeping the pair of Resistance fighters in the middle of the group, the rest followed.

"Is it likely to follow us?" Marcus asked, not terribly concerned. He was fairly sure his earlier guess was correct. The tiger's limited exposure to armed humans would have taught it the wisdom of leaving them well alone, especially when they were traveling in a pack.

"Well he is right partial to his territory and he's probably pretty hungry by now. Doesn't sound like he's had a successful hunt for a while, but he ain't gonna bother a group this big and we're moving out of his range anyhow, so I figure we'll be ok" the man answered.

"Brandon Weatherly" their host threw back over his shoulder, at last giving Marcus and Barnes a name.

"Marcus Wright" Marcus said, giving his own. Barnes could speak for himself.

"Colonel Anthony Barnes" the bearded former Marine said.

Marcus rolled his eyes at Barnes inclusion of his rank but said nothing.

"Yeah, kinda figured you fellas for Resistance, got the red patches on your sleeves and all."

Those same red identifiers were conspicuously missing on the clothes of their guides, Marcus noticed. He knew Barnes had too. Neither chose bring it up for the time being.

The comment had come from another of the newcomers, a woman.

"Kayla Tracey" she introduced. As she walked on Marcus's left, she was giving him a peculiar sideways look. Not like she was interested in _that_ way exactly, but more like she was sizing him up for something else. The appraisal made him vaguely uneasy. He realized the last woman to look at him like that had been Serena Kogan. He suppressed the sudden feeling of disquiet.

"The tiger's a male? There a mate around here anywhere?" Marcus wanted to know.

"Yeah, he's got a girl" Weatherly supplied. " And she's got some young, but her turf's off to the west a ways. We're safe enough for now. Got more to worry about from the machine killers than from the tigers right at the moment. Gotta get to some cover. Doesn't happen so much anymore since we humans took back the majority of Nevada, but the H-K's still buzz us at night sometimes. We should wait for first light before we try to get home."

"And where's that?" Barnes prodded.

Weatherly gave an enigmatic half smile. "Not too far away from here."

Nicely nonspecific, Marcus thought. He shot a quick at look Barnes. The Colonel didn't like that answer either. The group traveled on in silence for some time.

Weatherly finally broke the conversation fast. "Where you boys from?" he asked casually.

Marcus could sense there was more depth to the question than just making talk. Why did he pick up such a weird feeling from these people? So far, they'd done nothing to warrant it, but it refused to go away.

"California" Barnes answered shortly. Out of long habit, he was loath to give away too much information.

"Heard tell John Connor's in California" Weatherly put forth, again just a bit too casually for Marcus's liking. Beside him, he felt Barnes stiffen imperceptibly.

"Wouldn't know about that" Marcus allowed truthfully. The base had been on the verge of one of their frequent moves right before the pair departed for their fact finding mission. By now, no telling where their new home might be. Connor liked to keep it unpredictable. Hard to find was harder to kill.

Another one of their companions spoke up. "Sure would like to meet him someday. Might even join up with the Resistance" the speaker looked to be around Kyle Reese's age, thin, with dark blond hair framing a pockmarked complexion.

"The Resistance is always looking for more fighters. We need everybody we can get to put Skynet down" Marcus replied, more out of politeness than anything else. They were surrounded and on strange ground. A little diplomacy couldn't hurt.

"Ain't that the truth" Weatherly agreed, then spat. "Here we are."

Marcus struggled to hide his surprise. In front of him appeared to be the entrance to an old mine. At least it looked old. Also extremely unsafe. Way too unsafe for him to be walking into by himself, let alone braced by a complement of strangers whose demeanor was waking all his inner alarms one by one. Glancing over at Anthony Barnes, he could tell the other man had as many reservations as he did. This just kept getting better.

Weatherly grinned at their nervousness. "Don't worry fellas, it's not a real mine. Used to be part of one of some old west themed tourist trap. Goes down far enough to hide us from anything Skynet might have flying around up there, so it's safer to travel this way 'specially in the dark."

"You're not worried there might be terminators or something else waiting on you in here sometime?" Barnes disputed.

"We got it wired" Weatherly reassured him. "Nothing moves thru these tunnels we don't know about."

The word "wired" registered with Marcus. Those alarm bells started tingling a tad louder. This apparently ragtag group of refugees had technology sophisticated enough to surveil the approach and egress to wherever they called home. But they weren't Resistance. That was unpleasantly interesting.

"Not much light in there right?" Barnes asked.

"Yep. Almost none. Don't worry about that either. Got that covered too" the skinny blond kid spouted.

Barnes and Wright's bewilderment must have shown on their faces because the kid broke into a wiseass grin that irritated Marcus tremendously.

"Don't mind him" Weatherly put in. "Nicky's mouth gets ahead of his brain a lot. He means these."

Unshouldering his pack, their guide delved inside and came up with a couple of smallish bundles. Handing one to Marcus and one to Barnes, he waited while they were opened.

If the Nevadans were expecting their guests to be confused, they were disappointed. Both Marcus Wright and Anthony Barnes recognized they were holding NV goggles. Military for most of his adult life, the Colonel had used NV many times before. In Marcus's case, not all those bank robberies from his lawless days were daytime hits and night vision goggles made stealing in the dark much easier. Now, with his new abilities, the NV was unnecessary, but Marcus accepted them anyway for appearances sake.

What were the odds, Marcus asked himself, that he and Barnes would stumble across a group of well armed, well equipped non-Resistance affiliated refugees in the middle of a ruined bombed out Las Vegas? People who didn't seem to have much fear of Skynet or terminators or any machine danger? If there weren't Barnes and the mission to consider, Marcus's well honed sense of self preservation would have had him out of there whatever it took. But he couldn't ditch Barnes, and they were here on business for Connor, so for now, he'd swallow his misgivings and go with the flow.

Strapping on the NV's he and Anthony Barnes plunged into the black tunnel after Brandon Weatherly.

* * *

It came at him without warning from out of the darkness. Ripping the NV goggles off his head, Marcus stumbled backward with a strangled yelp clawing for the Benelli M4 slung diagonally across his back. His fingers were wrapped around the barrel and the gun halfway in hand before he realized the thing that startled him into such a defensive reaction could no longer hurt him. The skeletal cadaver of the T-800 was drilled to the side of the shaft, its menacing red eyes permanently darkened.

"Told ya nothing moves thru these tunnels we don't know about and can't handle" Weatherly said neutrally. He started walking again.

And you knew that little piece of shock art was waiting on us didn't you Brandon? Hope you enjoyed the show. Angry at first, Marcus turned thoughtful. Some people can tell you things about themselves and they won't even know their doing it. You just have to be paying attention. Carl Soames had laid that little piece of wisdom on him long ago during one of their late night sessions huddled over the family car. The mind and its memories were funny things, with peculiar timing. 'Specially my mind, he snorted silently. That he should recall that conversation now.

"The 8's in sections" Marcus started. "How'd it get that way? You killed it then chopped it up?" He and Barnes both knew from painful personal experience how much it took to finish off a T-800.

"Naw" another of the party replied. "Blew itself up. Metal man there stepped on a Hellpatch."

Marcus froze, suddenly feeling trapped, unwilling to move forward, unable to go back the way he'd come.

"The shaft is mined?" he hissed crossly.

"Here and there" Weatherly threw off. "We know where they all are. But hey, you'd only have to worry about it if you were made out of metal, right? Let's get moving again."

Where'd this scraggly group score a supply of Hellpatch mines, so named because they introduced who or whatever stepped on one of them to a small piece of their namesake?

"We might have a-" Barnes began.

Marcus took an apparent misstep and stumbled awkwardly, falling into him.

"No" he whispered quickly, so quietly only Barnes could hear. "They don't get to know."

"But…" Barnes started to object.

Marcus squeezed Barnes arm with enough force to make his point. The Colonel clammed up.

"There some kind of complication we ought to know about?" Weatherly asked.

"No" Marcus told him. "Let's go. Lead on" Marcus huffed, glad the tunnel's darkness and the NV goggles he'd put back into position partially obscured his face.

Puzzled, Weatherly turned and continued on with the rest following.

"Crazy man" Barnes muttered under his breath."Gonna get us all blown up." Shaking his head, he trudged along. Machine, human or a combo-pack, Marcus Wright was flat out barking at the moon crazy.

* * *

"Would you like something to eat?" a woman's voice inquired behind him. Anthony Barnes turned to see an attractive female standing behind him with what looked like a hot bowl of meat and vegetable stew. She hadn't been among the dozen so individuals that made up his and Wright's Vegas escort.

About five six, the slender African American woman had a welcoming, friendly face framed by short, kinky-curly black hair. Her chocolate brown eyes seemed to draw Barnes in.

He tried not to think how long it had been since he'd…down boy, he admonished. She's offering you dinner, that all.

"Thanks" he said, accepting the warm bowl and a spoon. The food tasted real good. His stomach rumbled as he sent down the first mouthful. He couldn't ID the meat, but right at the moment he was more interested in eating it.

Uninvited the woman took a seat next to him, which he didn't mind. She had a nice smell, kind of a mix of mint and roses. He wondered how she'd made that happen in a world with no more department stores and perfume counters. The scent was somehow familiar, but he couldn't place it and after a few seconds, stopped trying.

"Kim Stanley" she said, offering him a slender hand.

"Anthony Barnes" his large calloused hand swallowed her smaller one.

"Do people call you Tony?"

"I don't really like it" he admitted.

"Anthony it is then" she shrugged, smiling.

She had dimples. Nice ones. His eyes strayed south of their own accord. She had a respectable rack too. STOP, he rebuked internally, yanking his gaze back to her face. There was no change in her easy demeanor or tone. Good, maybe she hadn't noticed his, uh, lapse.

"You've been with the Resistance a long time, huh?" Kim asked.

"Since the beginning" Barnes answered. No reason not to. It was an innocent enough question.

"What about him?" she wanted to know next, inclining her head in Marcus's direction.

"Not as long" Barnes told her, not inclined to elaborate.

"Oh" she shrugged again. "Well, I don't really want to talk about him anyway. I rather talk about you. I suppose you've killed a lot of machines, have you?"

"Yeah, my share, I guess" he conceded. "We keep killing them and Skynet keeps sending more so we can't stop."

"You're very determined" Kim admired.

"It's them or us" he said. "Skynet ain't about to stop. It wants to kill us all. You gotta know that even shut away down here like you are."

Barnes still couldn't get his head around where "here" was. Area 51. Groom Lake. Dreamland. Like just about everybody else in the U. S., he'd grown up hearing stories about this place, never imaging he'd one day be standing in the middle of it. The last Connor and the Resistance knew of, the former ultra secret government R & D facility was wrested from Skynet and held by humans once more. Now there wasn't a terminator, H-K or any other Skynet controlled machine or computer in sight, at least not that he could tell. The place had a lingering "machine" feel to it. You could still see Skynet's decorating touches if you looked close enough. Barnes was sure, the place he saw now was a long come down from its' pre-Judgment Day standards, but still, humans lived here now. There was a story behind that and he fully intended to hear it. One of the chapters could involve the missing Resistance units. It almost had to. The lovely Kim might be able to clear up a lot of questions.

Returned from completing the regular check in with home base, Marcus watched Barnes interact with the woman. Looked like they were getting pretty tight. He could have boosted his hearing to pick up the conversation, but decided not to. For one thing, it wasn't his business. For another, he'd finally learned that just 'cause he could do something didn't mean he should. That lesson had been driven home at a terrible cost. And lastly, things appeared to be developing along promising lines for Barnes. That might actually work in Marcus's favor. Who knows, he mused. Getting laid might mellow him out some. Get him to stop looking at me like he's a lawman and I'm still knocking over banks. If this pretty stranger could make that happen, Marcus was all for it.

Enough with Barnes, Wright figured. He's on his own. Marcus went looking for Brandon Weatherly. Might as well stop tiptoeing around the elephant. The folks currently calling Area 51 home had to have come into contact with the missing Resistance fighters at some point. But you'd never know it by the way they acted. Curioser and curiouser. In his own way, Marcus was every bit as skilled an interrogator as any cop he'd ever faced down, but he knew Weatherly would take careful handling.

Kayla Tracey intercepted him before he could track down the de facto 51 leader. "You hungry Mr. California?" she sauntered up with a bowl of the same stew Barnes new friend had offered to the Colonel. Showered and changed she'd lost the dust and grit of the day. She hadn't lost the look. She still had that.

Go away, Marcus thought. "No, thank you. I'm not hungry" he replied evenly. Whoa. Fast, so fast he almost chalked it up to imagination, Tracey's mouth tightened and those eyes that reminded him so much of Serena darkened for a fraction of a second. If he didn't know better, he would have sworn his reply had annoyed her. Who gets pissed 'cause you say no to a bowl of stew?

"Come one, not even one little bite? It's pretty good ya know. Dante really knows his stuff" she urged, not willing to let it go for some reason.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Thanks anyway. 'Sides, your resources have to be kind of limited. Don't want to take food out of somebody else's mouth." Marcus watched, but she didn't slip again.

"Well, if you're sure, but you don't know what you're missing" Tracey warned, moving off at last.

Marcus released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Don't come back, he thought. Ugh! Suddenly he missed Blair acutely. He always felt disconcerted when they were apart, but since he and Barnes had made the acquaintance of Brandon Weatherly and the rest of the 51 inhabitants, he really wanted to be with his wife again. Thinking of her mahogany hair and honey eyes calmed him. Back to business. Ok Brandon, where are you hiding? He caught Barnes's eye and the Colonel excused himself momentarily.

"The radio is back in your room" he told the Colonel. I'm going to hunt up Weatherly" Marcus told him. There's been no wisp of contact with our people by anyone here. Think it's time we got some answers"

"I'm going to call it a night" Barnes stated, eyeing Kim. "I'm done for. Need to grab some rack."

Marcus kept his face carefully blank following the unintentional double entendre. "Let you know what I find out." He left in search of Brandon Weatherly, casting an amused glance back over his shoulder. Barnes had already resumed his close proximity to the comely woman. More than one way to pry information out of a source, I guess. Bet Barnes will have a lot more fun pumping his subject than I will mine, he chuckled cynically.

Ok Weatherly. Come out, come out wherever you are.

* * *

It turned out not to be as difficult to locate the man as Marcus had thought it would. A short time questioning some of the other 51 residents led Wright down a mostly unlit hallway. Passing what looked like a row of whilom offices, their windows long since a memory, he came to the end. About to raise his hand and knock, he hesitated after realizing something intriguing. This office contained windows and a door of frosted glass for him to rap his knuckles against. It was a small detail, and most likely would have not been noted by most people, but Marcus Wright wasn't most people. There were some who would argue he was no longer a "people" at all, but that train of thought was for another time. A sage voice who's counsel Marcus had long ago learned to respect enjoined him to concentrate on Weatherly. He could hear Dale Carpenter's words running thru his head. "On your game, son. You don't want to miss something that might keep your nuts out of the chopper." He knocked. After receiving the assent to enter, he twisted the latch and went in.

* * *

Damn! Anthony Barnes breathed. It's been way too long! Kim Stanley walked towards him with a look in her eyes that left no question as to her intentions. If he'd had any persistent doubts on the subject, her current state of undress washed them away. Wearing nothing more concealing from the waist up than a seductive smile, Kim snuggled up to him, her soft lips and moist tongue tasting the skin at the base of his throat. Her hands journeyed in the opposite direction, straying to the buckle of the belt around his waist. With a practice that might have disturbed him had he been thinking clearly, she swiftly unlatched the belt. Working the zipper down, she slid a soft hand past the band of his worn boxers. Cupping him with her palm, she whispered, "well, Anthony, you just gonna stand there and let me do all the work?" Her voice was husky with desire.

Barnes growled, folding his muscled arms around her, kissing her, his tongue demanding entrance to her mouth. Removing her remaining clothing, he pulled her to him, feeling her long supple legs wrap around him. She moaned pleasurably as he slowly and carefully maneuvered them to the bed. He landed on his back, Kim on top of him. Grinning mischievously, she helped him lose the rest of his clothes, then playfully straddled him, hovering teasingly just above his manhood. She leaned down to kiss him, lightly nipping the skin on the side of his neck as she did so. The double offering of her mocha colored breasts was too tempting for him to pass up. Reaching out with both hands, he caressed her, enjoying the feel of her body.

It really has been too long, he reasoned. Think maybe my body's forgotten how to respond. It's not supposed to be doing this, he thought, as a strange, thoroughly bizarre numbing sensation began to work its way up from the soles of his feet. He tried to ignore it but couldn't as his arms lost all strength and fell to his sides. His entire self suddenly felt like dead weight. His tongue swelled, his vision swam and blurred.

"Something's wrong! What's wrong with me?!" he said to Kim, or at least tried to say. His thick tongue and dazed condition turned the words into " Smthwrgwasthongwthmmmm" He tried to ask for help, tried to move but his body no longer answered to his commands. The tiny portion of his mind that remained lucid screamed that he'd been drugged. The stew! That hot fantastic tasting stew!

"He—hel…. Wha ddd yyou…" His pathetic attempt to question Kim came to naught. She rose off the bed and stood back, watching clinically as whatever agent she'd administered via his evening meal did its work. Barnes fought back, putting everything he could into the conflict, but to no avail. Inexorably, overriding all his attempts at resistance, his eyes slid shut and he knew no more, succumbed to the effects of the drug.

**TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT**

"Mr. Wright, um, I mean Marcus" Brandon Weatherly greeted, "come in. What can I do for you?" Weatherly's attitude was friendly, helpful.

You can stop yanking my chain, Marcus answered silently. Being taken for an easy mark always got his hackles up. Steady, he reminded himself. Go slow. This one's not going to be simple. Like everyone else in the post JD world, this group had lived thru the indescribable. Brandon Weatherly was the man in charge or was at least as far as he and Barnes could tell. Which makes the man very NOT STUPID, so watch it.

"You turned in early" Marcus started, taking a look around. These were obviously Brandon Weatherly's personal quarters, the minor touches which individualized them becoming clear.

"Been a heck of a long day" Weatherly returned, rolling his head and neck in a circle for emphasis. "Wasn't real hungry so I decided I wanted rest more than food or company. What can I do for you?" he asked for a second time.

The hell with it, Marcus concluded mentally. He'd always sucked at small talk anyway and maybe a straight up approach might work better. "You haven't mentioned them. The Resistance troops. We know some of our personnel passed thru Vegas. You must have encountered them just like you did myself and the Colonel, but none have you have mentioned it. I'm just wondering why."

"Guess we were kind of waiting for you to do that" Weatherly answered smoothly. "I was sort of puzzled why neither of you has done it before now. Sure, we talked to your people, brought them here. They got food and rest and moved on. We got the feeling they had work to do, you know what I mean? Like they didn't have time to settle in and shoot the breeze, so we tried not to get in their way, hold 'em up for too long. Does that make sense to you?"

"Yeah, sure it does" Marcus gave back. "It's just that, uh, none of you, this place, nothing was ever mentioned in their dispatches. Your, um, current locale enjoys a certain reputation. Finding you all here, you'd think they would have said something. This is _the_ Area 51. They didn't even say anything about not finding any little green men." Like everyone, he'd heard all the nutty rumors circulated about the mysterious Dreamland. He'd been a criminal and a death row convict, but he hadn't lived under a rock.

Weatherly chuckled appropriately. "Well, they wouldn't have now would they, since there aren't any. Never have been. I always found that funny. Ever since the fifties that crazy business just wouldn't die, no matter what the government said. We always got a big kick out of it. Still do."

So, Marcus pondered expressionless. Don't know about the rest of your crew, but you've been in and out of here a lot over the years, probably since before Skynet fired up the ICBM's. Former base personnel, a scientist maybe? It was possible. Weatherly looked old enough. Keep him talking, Marcus told himself. The more a subject talked, the more they gave away, consciously or not. Living half his first lifetime on the wrong side of the law had given Wright an adeptness at ferreting out other peoples closely held private business.

"No" He corrected, "I mean they never said anything about this place or any of you at all. That wouldn't be like them. Resistance soldiers are trained to notice and report _everything_. Finding humans taking over Groom Lake, no sign of the machines, that's not something they'd neglect to talk about. So, you can see where there'd be cause for confusion."

"Yes, I can. And, Marcus, forgive me but I can't speak for your people. I wish I could tell you why their communications never mentioned us but I can't, I'm sorry. They certainly _should_ have told you about us and being here, I don't understand why they left it out. There's no light I can shed on it. They were here, they rested and replenished as best they could under the circumstances and then moved on. If it makes you feel any better, they were tightlipped about their origins, their base, everything. Didn't give up anything classified."

It doesn't, Marcus decided. That doesn't make me feel any better at all, Brandon old son. Not one bit. It told him something else though. Brandon Weatherly was a liar, a pretty good one. Marcus knew that because he was lying himself. Not overmuch, but enough to get Weatherly to stick his leg in the trap. The vanished Resistance troops had mentioned being at Area 51, had mentioned the human occupants, and even brought up Brandon Weatherly by name. _Then, _shortly after that communiqué, each of the platoons had dropped totally off the air, like they'd been swallowed by the Nevada dust and sand. Those alarms of his had abandoned all pretense at decorum and were presently clanging in his head with the ferocity of a five alarm fire bell. Wright was certain. Weatherly and their new 51 friends not only knew what had become of the missing Resistance platoons, but most likely played a big part in it. He and Barnes were hip deep in trouble.

* * *

Reminding him eerily of his cell at Longview, Marcus had to admit that the small cramped room he'd been assigned for the night was at least clean. He suspected it had once done time as a supply closet, but elected not to ask. The narrow cot groaned under his weight, but held. Kicking off his boots and jacket, he settled back, folding his hands behind his head, fingers interlocked, staring up at the ceiling.

Talking to Brandon Weatherly had felt like the verbal equivalent of the mine field he and Blair had braved to escape the pissed off Resistance not long enough ago. Cagey and practiced, Marcus found him a challenge to draw out. He spared a fleeting thought for Barnes, no doubt wrapped up in the alluring Kim. Lucky Colonel Barnes. I've got you Brandon. What have you got for me? He replayed the conversation in his mind.

"One thing I got to ask" Wright had said to the other man. "How are you all surviving here? You grow your own food? That meat and the vegetables in the stew, where'd they come from?" he let a touch of admiration color the question. The sentiment wasn't genuine, but Marcus was good enough at the technique to make it seem that way. Guys like Weatherly enjoyed being stroked.

"You might say that. Some of it we grow. But there's other ways of producing what we need" Brandon Weatherly acknowledged cryptically.

"So, you hunt too, huh? Give the tigers some competition?" Marcus prodded.

"Our hunting parties go out periodically." The conveniently supplied explanation was snapped up quickly. Gotcha again, Marcus realized.

You're not as good at this as you think you are Brandon. Wright nodded, pretending to swallow the hook. They weren't supplementing their foodstuffs by hunting. It would need a pretty good supply to feed the forty or so he'd counted since he and Barnes had arrived at Area 51. Taking that much game over a sustained period of time would have attracted Skynet's attention long ago. It would have decided that much drop in the animal population indicated the presence of a human settlement, and the AI had only one protocol for dealing with a concentration of humans. That clearly hadn't happened here. Why not? Why were Weatherly and Kim and his personal favorite, creepy Kayla, and the rest all still alive? For what reason had Skynyet not eliminated them? Although this part of Nevada technically counted as Resistance territory again, the machines retained enough of a foothold to make serious trouble for the humans which were very, very slowly migrating back into the area. Why hadn't Skynet come at the 51'ers with H-K's or sent in T-800's? And how did it all figure in with the missing Resistance units?

"So, how did you come to be here?" Marcus asked, trying to remember to feed his host's ego. "You'd think the machines would be all over."

"They were already cleared out by the time we got here" Weatherly told him. "Nevada resistance took the place back from 'em. That must have been one helluva fight, huh? Kinda wish I'd been around for it."

"Why weren't you? I mean, where were you? How did you survive Judgment Day? Where'd you wait it out until it was safe to come back? No wait, sorry, never mind. That's none of my business." Marcus apologized as if suddenly aware he'd gotten too personal.

"No, it's alright. No big secret" Weatherly reassured him. "I don't mind talking about it. Not like I got anything to hide. Myself and most of these other folks, we all used to either work here or some relative did. You know, mother or father, husband or wife, something like that. People who work in super secret government facilities have families too. Myself, I was a scientist with armaments R&D. How's that for ironic? Imagine our surprise when one day all the computers went haywire and all our clever inventions started turning on us. We should have all died that day, every human here shoulda been stone dead. Only reason we ain't is cause a place like Area 51, well, kinda lends itself to thinking crazy ideas. Those ideas get taken seriously where somewhere else they'd get laughed off or chalked up to paranoia. For instance, what if we screw up and make the machines smarter than we are and they decide they don't need us around anymore? We might just need a way to vamoose out of here real quick. When you work in a place like this, you lay awake at night thinking about stuff like that, you know?" Brandon Weatherly grinned a haunted grin, the look in his eyes taking on a slightly manic gleam. "A bunch of us formed our own uh, private think tank you might say, and came up with a solution. Never really thought we'd be using it, and then one day, there we were, using it. Skynet had a grip on all this for a long time. Resistance fought the machines off, took it away from 'em. Then they were gone too. Wish I could tell you how or why, or what happened to 'em, but I can't. Sorry. Anyways, those of us who were willing, we came back. It's the closest thing to home most of us will ever have again."

A captivating tale, Marcus thought. One that contained enough truth to very nearly hide the lies. Brandon Weatherly, he decided, you missed your calling. Instead of wasting time designing weapons for the government before JD, you should have been a grifter.

He stretched, feigning exhaustion. "I guess the day's finally catching up with me too. There someplace I can sack out for the night? Colonel Barnes and myself, we, um, well not sure what tomorrow's going to be, but we're going to need to get an early start."

"Of course. I'll have someone show you where you can sleep. I, um, think Colonel Barnes has already made other, um, arrangements." Weatherly cleared his throat awkwardly as if embarrassed .

Yeah sure, right, Marcus scoffed, careful not to show it.

An hour later, still awake despite his words to Weatherly, he stared upward, reviewing the conversation, gleaning what intel he could from it.

Running footsteps pounded down the hallway, disturbing his train of thought. Raised voices, agitated in tone further drew his attention. Relieving the bed of his weight, he stood. Tugging on and tying his boots and donning his jacket he walked to the door. He turned the handle only to find himself locked in. When had they done that? And how? And more importantly why?

Later for that. Those agitated voices were growing in number, getting louder and angrier. What was going on? What had happened? Something bad, that was for sure. Marcus's sharp hearing picked up the sound of a quickly muffled scream.

He heard Weatherly's voice talking over the others as they passed Wright's supply closet guest quarters. The volume faded as the passage emptied. Whatever was happening they didn't intend to let him in on it. They probably counted on the locked door keeping him in check. No joy there, Brandon. Under pressure from his cybernetics the lock crumpled like aluminum foil. He strapped the duffel with their supplies and weapons across his back, fixing it securely so any noise it might make would be muffled. With the savoir-fare of someone who'd been both hunter and hunted, he crept after his departed innkeepers.

* * *

Drifting along in the wake of the receding voices, Marcus was careful to remain unseen. He checked constantly behind him. Nothing ruined a good sneak like getting caught. The corridor took several sharp turns and led past what had been turned into the latest in after apocalypse apartment living. The former worker cubbyholes were divided into personal space, some with makeshift draping or dividers to provide their dwellers with some semblance of privacy.

The commotion grew more pronounced. Wright slowed, realizing he was getting closer to the epicenter of whatever event had everyone in such an uproar. A short flight of stairs lay in front of him, but if he went down them, he would be visible to those from whom he'd prefer to remain hidden. Crouching so he could look down into the room below, partitioned into more living spaces, he hugged the shadows, glad for their concealing properties. He dialed up his vision and hearing, then wished he hadn't. Taking in the scene, his eyes grew wide with horror and disbelief. Whatever he was expecting to see, it hadn't been this.

The room was in considerable disarray with objects thrown about. In the center of it, sprawled naked on her back arms and legs at odd unnatural angles, Kim Stanley was no longer lovely, she was dead. And not just dead, Marcus realized, she was bloody, messy dead. Covered in smeared crimson from head to toes, her soft brown eyes were glassy with death and her mouth open, as if she'd died pleading in vain for her life. Her blood spattered the walls, painted the floor. Marcus had seen some ugly things in his time. This one made the list.

What made it worse was what else he saw. Sprawled face down next to the body of the murdered woman, no more clothed than she, lay a groaning, groggy Colonel Anthony Barnes. Barely able to lift his head an inch or two from the grimy blood smeared floor, Barnes appeared to be incoherent. Dragged away from Kim and pulled roughly upright, he sagged heavily, eyes rolling back in his head. Slathered in blood, he didn't look wounded or injured in any way that Marcus could see. It might have gone better for him if he had been. Marcus couldn't believe what he saw, didn't want to, but could not deny it. Barnes's right hand and arm were soaked in Kim Stanley's blood up to his elbow, and gripped so tightly in his right hand that the fingers had to be forcibly pried open was what appeared to be the murder weapon, the Colonel's large oft used K-Bar combat knife.

* * *

**Author's note: Great. Barnes finally meets someone and this has to happen huh? Only been to Vegas once and obviously never to Area 51, but it is fun to speculate about a place we've all heard so much about. Also, the real Area 51 is at **_**least**_** 3 days from Vegas if the trip is by foot, but I shortened the distance for literary purposes. Just go with it. As always, reviews are welcome. Please let me know what you think. See you next chapter. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: We all know what comes first, so say it with me and it will go faster. Ready? Ok go. "I have no connection to any of the Terminator characters or franchise either financially or creatively. Original characters are mine. Blah, blah, blah, yak, yak, yak…" Alright, enough of that. On to chapter 3.**

The Importance of Being Protein- Chapter 3

Sin City Surprise

Marcus watched helplessly as Colonel Anthony Barnes was manhandled by the angry Area 51 inhabitants. Reaching behind his back, he carefully set the heavy bag he'd been carrying on the floor, unzipping it silently.

The gory scene below blew his mind. Barnes a murderer!? That seemed impossible, no matter what his eyes told him. He and Anthony Barnes certainly had their differences. They generally didn't much care for one another and both were fine with leaving it that way. But this grisly act? Was Barnes truly capable of doing such a savage thing to anyone, let alone a lover? Kim Stanley's body was a bloodied horror right out of a slasher flick. It didn't fit in with anything he knew about the man. What he saw down there looked like the product of psychotic anger. Whatever else Marcus thought of him, he didn't believe Barnes was murderously disturbed. And besides, earlier Barnes and Kim looked to be getting busy, not violent. What could have changed so drastically in such a short amount of time?

Marcus reached into the duffel for his Benelli. Charging unarmed into the middle of fifteen or so angry Area 51ers to rescue the Colonel was a dumbass idea even for someone with his advantages. He better do something soon, though. The mood down there was getting uglier. Maybe Barnes was a killer and maybe he wasn't but by the looks of things his guilt or innocence might not matter in a couple of minutes.

"Alright everyone, that's enough!" Brandon Weatherly shouted everyone else down, quashing the lynch mentality. Allowing no disagreement he began issuing orders, settling any question about who was really in charge.

"Get him dressed" Weatherly barked, pointing to the mumbling, incoherent Barnes. "Take him to containment. Do it now!" he yelled, suddenly intimidating. "And clean Kim's body and take her to the locker" he added somewhat more gently.

"But Brandon-" one of the others started to object, earning some unwanted personal attention.

"Would you like to join her?" Weatherly whispered.

Marcus's acute hearing picked up the implied menace in the innocuous question. His scalp prickled as he saw abject fear take over the face of Brandon Weatherly's questioner. What could turn a man's bones to water that way?

The objector's face lost most of its color. "Nnnoo, nno, no" the man stammered, shaking.

"Then follow your orders and do it now. We don't waste. You know that. Put their comm gear in my quarters. And bring that other one to central" Weatherly stalked off satisfied his orders would be carried out with no further comments.

"That other one" is me, Marcus knew. The "Dreamers" weren't going to be too happy when they got to his supply closet and found him not in it. Quickly returning the shotgun to the duffel, he zipped the bag and backed down the hallway, turning to run as soon as he rounded the corner. He stayed in motion, widening the distance between him and what were about to become his pursuers as soon as they discovered him missing. One thing was pretty clear almost immediately. He had to get out of these halls, find a place to hole up until he could think up a way to get to Barnes and free the other man. Being escorted to "central" to meekly await whatever fate lay in store for the somnolent Barnes and himself was not on his list of things to do today.

His hearing, tuned to its highest gain, told him they'd found Marcus was no longer where they'd expected him to be. Now it was a manhunt. Much faster that he would have liked. No matter. An armed gang of people with hostile intentions looking for him was a garment he'd worn many times before. He slipped it on like a comfortable old T-shirt. His body might be machine and his head home to a computer, but the organic portion of his brain still produced the "fight or flight" reaction of old. With everything ramped up, he was ready for anything, possibly even welcomed it. Marcus you're a liar, he told himself. You might be mostly different, but that part of you hasn't changed at all, has it?

His ears picked up activity. They were getting closer. Ok, think. Time to become invisible. But how? Weatherly and the 51's were on home ground. They knew every nook and cranny. One of them lived or worked in almost every inch of this place. They knew the security systems, the best way to smoke out their quarry. Trying to slip past them to get to the surface, (they were more than twenty stories underground), didn't feel doable, and probably wasn't, at least not under these conditions. Besides, there was Barnes to consider. Marcus had to get to the guy, free him, and then get to that elevator before Brandon Weatherly and his (followers?) could prevent it. A tall order, but first he'd need a way to evade the searchers. Where? Where would they not think to look? Where might their scanning equipment have a problem finding him? Where-

He looked up. Thanks Pepe. A long forgotten memory resurrected itself.

_Hidden from the Aguilar brothers, eighteen year old Marcus Wright squirmed, trying noiselessly to find a comfortable position inside the cramped ductwork of the old warehouse. Hot, tired and hungry, the teenager waited impatiently for Pepe and Jose to leave and take care of whatever business had drawn them to El Paso. Only then could he emerge from his tight prison and go in search of the kidnapped Manny Serrano. Crawling down into the vent, accessed from the roof of the building, to wait for his chance had seemed a good idea at the time, but now, with those two down below endlessly blabbering like they were at a hen party, Marcus felt like shooting something. Either the brothers or himself. Pepe's cell rang, saving the young Wright from doing something extremely stupid… _

The ceiling over his head was comprised of acoustic tiles. Hopefully, it was reinforced and could hold his weight. Just because the surface was out for the time being didn't mean he couldn't go up. Weatherly's comments about creating a secret escape hatch before Judgment day came back too. So that's how you did it huh Brandon? Let's hope you don't think I can. Marcus secured the heavy bag across his back, braced himself, and jumped for the nearest ceiling panel.

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The many years of neglect hit him in the face the second he poked his head into the vent. Spitting out a mouthful of cobwebs and dust and brushing debris from his face, Marcus hauled his body up the remainder of the way, thankful the heavy duty metal venting issued no groans of protest at his invasion. He closed up his entrance and situating the duffel ahead of him, he plotted a path down the lightless tunnel. Hopefully, the vent work was not alarmed or equipped with any kind of motion sensing technology. If it was, when he dropped down out of here, Weatherly would be waiting. Well, this was Vegas, or close enough to it. Ante up playa.

He started crawling and found he actually had reason to be grateful to Skynet. Thanks to his on board computer and the natural ability left over from his criminal past, getting and keeping a map of any place in his head came easy. He had no idea for sure where "containment" was, but he could make a pretty good guess. Earlier, while trying to find Weatherly's roost, he'd passed what had the familiar look of an abbreviated version of a jail. The reinforced steel doors had bars over the 9" X 12" windows, nasty looking locks and each door had a number over it. That had to be where Barnes would be taken so Marcus headed for it.

The going was slow. Uncounted generations of insects and rats had chosen to call Area 51's vent system home. In addition to the dust and cobwebs and general trashiness, Wright found he also had to deal with affronted vermin upset at having their domicile's disturbed by his distinctly unwelcome presence. A great amount of indignant squeaking and scurrying accompanied his journey thru the narrow passage. After a couple of minutes he was forced to stop and fashion a mask for his nose and mouth. Crawling thru layers of dust and rat droppings was bad enough without having to breathe it all in. He recognized he needed to pick up the pace. Unable to locate him in the hallways and rooms, it shouldn't take his hosts long to deduce where else to look. Marcus's problem was that he had to get where he was going without making noise. If Weatherly and the posse heard movement overhead, the jig was up. Shooting into the air ducts probably won't kill me, Wright reasoned, but it will hurt a whole hell of a lot and get me caught too, not to mention blowing the lid off my dirty little secret. So far, the Dreamland group had given no indication they knew about his physical "differences." That suited him fine. As outnumbered as they were, he and Colonel Barnes needed every advantage they could get. Periodically, he heard running footsteps below. The searchers were, naturally, equipped with radios. Trying to coordinate their efforts, hoping to box me in. Marcus shook his head, darkly amused. At various times, he'd been the object of desire of just about every major law enforcement entity in the now no longer existent United State of America. Come to think of it, more than a few minor ones too. If anyone had told him back then that all his running and hiding experience would someday help him stay one step ahead of the post nuclear holocaust version of an angry village mob, he'd have locked that person up and swallowed the key. And yet, here he was. I've been chased by better than you Brandon. Catch me if you can.

Slow down, he cautioned. Don't feel yourself too much son, Dale Carpenter's shade reminded him. You're not the only one that can figure things out. Some of these folks really are rocket scientists. Don't underestimate them.

He kept making steady progress, eventually arriving at a T shaped junction. Referring to his mental map, Marcus knew going right would get him to the cluster of security cells. He started in that direction then stopped. Obeying a powerful, obscure impulse he would never be able to explain, he made a careful one eighty and headed in the opposite direction. Barnes would have to keep for the moment. He'd never know why, never ever be able to clarify it, but something propelled him onward, away for now from where he knew it was likely his reluctant compatriot had been incarcerated. What are you doing Marcus? This doesn't make any sense and you're wasting time! What's important is that you get to Barnes and find way to get the both of you out of here and to the surface, so why aren't you doing it?! He didn't have a clue, but he didn't turn around either. There better be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, 'cause it just might cost Anthony Barnes his life. The unspoken debate raged all the while he worked his way down the filthy feces littered channel, disturbing more rats, spiders and other critters it was probably better he couldn't identify. He came to another turning point and noticed that the vent angled downward slightly and then came to another T after about ten yards. Craning his head around the corner as he reached it, Marcus could see a grate ahead. There had to be a room on the other side of it. He come all this way, delaying the aid Barnes needed to come to this point. Might as well see what the room contained. Hoping to avoid the cat's fate, he crept up to the grate, peeked thru the slats, took a look and immediately regretted it. Suddenly, he had trouble breathing. It was starting to come crystal clear what might have become of the missing resistance fighters. He had to get back to where Barnes was and they had to get out of here. Right the hell now. Now, now, **NOW!**

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"Uuugghhh!" Barnes grunted in pain as the cuffs securing his hands and feet were tightly fastened. One of his captors stood guard while the other drew the length of chain the wrist and ankle bracelets were attached to thru metal loops welded to the wall, then around the Colonel's waist and down. Accompanied by a malicious sneer, Barnes jailer gave the chain a vicious tug, forcing the prisoner as far forward as possible. Already pinned to the wall, his upper body was unable to completely follow.

His brain was still swimming in a miasma, but Anthony Barnes got a huge hit of adrenaline as his shoulders were yanked nearly out of their sockets.

"Aaaauuuggghhhh! Barnes shrill scream of pain trailed off into a weak pant.

"Jones!" the other guard yelled, appalled at the brutal treatment in spite of everything. "Knock it off! Straighten him up and let's get back to Control. We still gotta track down the other one. Come on! Get it done and let's go! Now!"

"That was for Kim!" Jones hissed spitefully, finishing the job by pulling the chain thru one final loop in the floor. Fastening a deadbolt lock thru both the metal loop and the chain, Jones stood nose to nose with the captive.

"She was my friend! I can't wait! I can't wait until we get to you! I'm really gonna enjoy that! I can't wait!" Jones rancid breath nearly choked Barnes.

"Out, Jones! Let's go, come on!" The second, nameless man pulled Jones out of the cell, leaving the Colonel alone at last.

He couldn't exactly slump, bound to the sides of his prison like a bizarre piece of living artwork, but Barnes knew his fetters were the only things holding him up. Between the pain in his shoulders and the drugs still coursing thru his system, he felt as weak as a baby. There was too much confusion, too much…what happened to him?! What happened to Kim?! Before he'd been hauled off, his punchy brain had barely registered the sight of her butchered body. Who'd done that to her?! Not him! It couldn't have been, could it?! It didn't…it didn't make…he couldn't have done that to someone! Anyone! He was good at killing machines, but he'd never do something like that to another human being! He absolutely would not! It was impossible! He…he couldn't… The last thing he remembered was the beautiful woman kneeling over him as he lay on his back across her bed. She bent down for a kiss, he caressed her, and then…nothing. The next thing he was aware of was being attacked and bound up like an animal by people angry enough to rip him to shreds. What was going on?! Who had murdered Kim! How had he ended up being blamed for it?! How had this happened to him?! And where the hell was Marcus Wright!?

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Marcus Wright kept crawling, making his way as slowly and silently as possible back to where he thought Barnes was being kept. Disbelief hammered at the walls of his consciousness. What he'd seen in that room rattled him down to his metal bones. He hadn't known such a thing was possible but the evidence his eyes had provided refused to be denied. He wanted to stop, rest, analyze it and try to figure out what it meant for him and Barnes, Connor and the resistance. He didn't stop. Time was critical, especially for the imprisoned Anthony Barnes. How to deal with this latest twist would have to wait until the Colonel was free.

As he clambered along, mostly on hands and knees, he passed more grating, some in the sides of the metal sheathed duct and some he drug his knees over. He tried to take a quick look thru every one, but saw only what seemed like more living quarters. At a glance, some of the scientists were total slobs and some were neat freaks, like among the resistance. Dismissing the incongruent thought, he continued on.

Back when Marcus was a kid, before him and Sam went to live with the Soames family he'd learned the art of compartmentalizing. Letting his brain sort all the things it was bombarded with on a daily basis into their own separate boxes. Later, when it was quiet and dark, after everyone else was asleep, Marcus would often replay the day in his mind, all the details and events obediently re-presenting themselves for review. Such a talent became eminently useful to him after he'd taken up robbing banks as a vocation. He'd learned pretty quickly that keeping track, or not, of the little stuff could mean the difference between getting away and getting caught. He tried to do that now, to file his staggering new discovery away for a down the line audit, but it was not to be. The sights and sounds of that room fought their way to the fore of his mind, insisting on his attention. The implications for John Connor and the human resistance were ominous. Hell, they were ominous for him too, and for Barnes and for everybody. This was a game changer, and not in a good way…

_Peering thru the steel slats, Marcus craned his neck slightly, providing a better view. Before he went to retrieve Barnes, he might as well do a little recon. Maybe this room was why his impulses had pushed him in this direction. One of the things Skynet had bequeathed him along with his "specially grown skin" was the ability to become flushed or pale as the situation dictated. Taking in the scene on the other side of the grate, his mind put it together in a flash and his face drained of color. _

_Rigidly straight and devoid of expression, several T-800's sat in chairs placed at various stations throughout the room. Their endoskeletons as flesh covered as his, Wright still had no trouble knowing them for what they were. Their size alone set them apart. The massive shoulders, body builder legs, and thick necks distinguished them as Skynet constructs. When the AI harvested his brain, heart and nervous system from his organic body and placed them within the confines of a hyper alloy shell, for its own reasons it stayed with Marcus's original physical parameters. Height, weight, hair and eye color, even bone structure. All of his body's prototypal properties were adhered to down to the last detail. Kate Connor surmised once that it was probably because Skynet wanted Marcus to be able to fit in; that he didn't have the typical build of a terminator because Skynet didn't want him to be suspected as the infiltrating assassin he was intended to become. Clearly, no such limitations applied in the assemblage of the creatures Wright saw now. Every inch of these things __**screamed**__TERMINATOR __in big glowing neon letters. He counted and came up with an inventory of six seated 800's. That brought the final total to eight, because two guarded a door apiece of the tech loaded room. _

_Marcus had been inside a number of Skynet tactical centers by this time, San Francisco, the Arizona R&D place and others. The activity on the monitors and consoles told him Skynet was in that room. What unnerved him most however was not the presence of the malevolent supercomputer, nor the grouping of deadly terminators. It was the humans. Area 51 scientists, some of whom he recognized from his and Barnes Las Vegas welcoming committee and some he'd never seen until this moment. Working in teams, the 51'ers swarmed about each of the six seated cyborgs like drones servicing a queen. By their relaxed manner, it didn't seem like the humans felt they were in any way endangered by the killer machines. Leads trailed from the neural net computer of each machine to a console next to its chair. Numbers and readouts scrolled across the screens monitored and were recorded faithfully by the human scribes assigned to that station. Just like any other nine to five workday at the lab. If he'd been able, Marcus was sure his gut would have turned over. This was worse than anyone could have imagined. Brandon Weatherly and the others, they weren't just liars, they were collaborators, working with the machines to help destroy all other humans. At Skynet's sufferance surely, but collaborators all the same. No, worse than that. John Connor believed Groom Lake to be back in human, if not resistance, hands. That Skynet had been kicked out of this part of Nevada and it was nominally safe once more for human habitation. Ever devious, Skynet allowed the illusion to remain, co-opting the returning scientists to its use. How? How had Weatherly and his group been converted to slaves of the machine? That was a question for another time. What mattered now was that it happened. The Dreamland group were Judas goats, luring in other humans, like the missing resistance platoons, with the promise of shelter, rest and aid and then what? Turning them over to Skynet ? For what reason? How did Brandon Weatherly and the rest remain immune from the AI's desire to eradicate humanity? What obscene deal had they worked that exempted them from being killed like all other humans encountered by the machines? One last chilling query popped into his mind. If Skynet was here, did it know he was too? Had all his careful concealment of his unique physicality been for nothing and Weatherly was just playing him? If that was so, why were he and Barnes still alive? Marcus's head hurt from all the unanswerable questions. The more he thought about it, the more in the mood he got to give somebody a serious ass kicking. Damn Brandon Weatherly, damn the machines, and very definitely, DAMN SKYNET!_

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"What do you mean there's no sign of him?!" Weatherly screamed, raging at the bringer of his bad news. Spittle flew. "He can't have disappeared, he's not a ghost. Wright's here. He's here somewhere. Now find him!" the 51 leader roared. "You know what could happen to all of us if he's not found! You know what Skynet will do to us! You need a reason to look harder? Huh, do ya?! Maybe you want to explain it yourself. Maybe I ought to just get out of the way and let you explain to Skynet yourself why you're having so much problem finding just one man. You could walk this place in your sleep, Andy. And you're trying to say he ain't nowhere you can tell. We both know that's not true don't we? Let me make this real plain for you, all of you" Weatherly included the other searchers in his statement. His cold eyes gathered in everyone in the room.

"Our arrangement with Skynet is non-negotiable. We provide it with resistance fighters to work on and we get to live. So do our families. That's the deal and it's carved in stone. If one of 'em gets away to report back to their command, Skynet cancels our contract. Then it'll cancel us! Got it?! Now find him!" The big man ordered thru clenched teeth. Weatherly ran a hand thru his unkept hair and blew out a breath, arching his back to stretch out tired muscles. The position ended with him staring up at the mostly ignored ventilation system. He stopped stone still locked in stasis as the memory of his long ago flight from this place came flooding back. He slapped a hand to his face. Of course! Of course, that had to be it! That had to be where Wright was hiding! That's why they couldn't find him! That had to be it! That son of a-!

"Hey!" He called back Andy Moore and his searchers. "Stop wasting your time checking the rooms. He ain't in none of 'em. Check the vent system. Send your teams in there. I know that's where he is. Pin him down and flush him out! And bring him to me! And remember, Skynet wants all of 'em alive. Go! Get outta here! Hurry up! We're running out of time!"

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"Almost there, Barnes, almost there" Marcus muttered behind the makeshift protection over his mouth and nose. He'd been crawling uncomfortably for nearly fifteen minutes thru the darkened ductwork to get to where the map in his head told him he needed to be. A couple more minutes should get him to Colonel Barnes.

And then what? Hey, all we have to do is find a way to get past Weatherly and his quislings, duck Skynet's surveillance and _eight_, count 'em, eight terminators, (at least), get to the elevator and make it above ground, then back across the desert and the two of us have find a way to let John Connor know what's going on here. Simple, right? Yeah, sure. Enough whining Marcus, get to it. He was about to start in motion again when he realized there was movement ahead, _inside the duct. _Heavy steps. This definitely wasn't rats or any other vermin. It wasn't anything with four or more legs. They'd finally figured it out. Maybe Weatherly had remembered, or perhaps someone else who'd escaped Groom Lake with the mad doctor on Judgment Day. Maybe somebody just had a bright idea. It didn't really matter. They'd guessed how Marcus had managed to evade them and by the sound of it were busy closing off his escape routes. His neck twisted around. Damn it! They were behind him too! The ventilation had offshoots, places where it branched away from the main shaft, following the building's layout. Trying for one of those and then down into one of the rooms was swiftly becoming his only remaining option. He had to get there. He double timed it and before long, hearing his pursuers approaching front and rear, as his path went slightly left, he saw the telltale light showing past the openings in a grate ten feet away, one that looked big enough for him to squeeze thru. I'll make it fit, he silently joked with black humor. Skittering along like a hermit crab, he was five feet from his goal when his luck ran out. Crouched in front of Wright, closer to his would-be escape hatch that he was, and looking curiously unhappy to have found him given that's what they'd been tasked to do, were a pair of the 51's.

Marcus's time at the top of Texas's most wanted scumbag list served him well over the isolated science pukes in that he recovered first. He had two M84 flash bangs clamped across his chest. Ripping one free, he pulled the pin and tossed it at the two startled Dreamlanders, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and clapping his hands over his ears.

**BANG!** The grenade went off, a miniature fireworks display combined with an ear-piercing bawl within the confined area. Wright got what he wanted. Marcus's foes rocked back on their heels, stunned by the violent assault to their senses.

While they were still rolling around moaning, he lunged for the opening, giving the hardware covering a savage kick. The grate blasted off its moorings to pound against the opposite wall. Marcus slid thru, pulling the all important duffel after him.

"Ooommpph!" he landed with painful thud after about a four foot drop directly on top of formerly neatly stacked cooking pots and utensils. The resulting racket almost rivaled the flash bang for noise.

Well that ought to narrow it down for 'em, Marcus thought, disgusted. He fought his way out of the pile and to the door, yanking it open. It didn't surprise him that hadn't been locked. Who locks up stew pots and skillets? He stuck his head out, pleased to see an empty hallway, at least for now. It wouldn't stay that way for long. The guys he'd caught off guard with his little grenade trick were starting to recover by now and probably radioing his position to their buddies.

He darted down the corridor, eyes, ears and nose all amplified to the maximum. If Marcus was to have any chance at all, he couldn't afford any more face to face confrontations. Reorienting himself to where Barnes was, he took off running.

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"_Your performance and that of your companions is not optimal Brandon Weatherly. According to the terms of our agreement, that is unacceptable." _

Weatherly quailed as Skynet upbraided him. The face and voice of his late wife Karen, always the form with which Skynet chose to address him, stared passionless from the oversized screen. You really know how to twist the knife don't you machine, he thought bitterly. Losing Karen had broken him, something Skynet had figured out a long time ago.

"_The arrival of two more members of the human resistance should have been reported to us immediately. You will explain your failure to do so" _Karen's image demanded.

"There's only the two of them. I didn't think only two would mean anything to you" he lied. He realized his interrogator would not accept the lie but felt compelled to give it out just the same.

"_That is not our arrangement, Brandon Weatherly. The conditions under which humans have been allowed to inhibit this facility stipulate that the presence of any and all resistance shall be made known to us without delay. Your noncompliance will be addressed, as well as your continued failure to apprehend one of them. Supply their identities."_

What difference did it make who they were, the 51 leader asked resentfully, through not aloud. "One is a Colonel Anthony Barnes and the other says his name is Wright."

"_Marcus Wright?" The blond recreation of his dead wife's face shaded from sepia to red to green and blue and then back to sepia as the machine reacted. Its tone became strident. _

He didn't understand what the big deal was. Who was Marcus Wright and why did Skynet care so much about him?

"Yes, Marcus Wright. Why? Who is he? Why's he so important?" He had to ask.

"_That is not your concern. Recall your search teams Brandon Weatherly. The apprehension of Marcus Wright is no longer your responsibility. You and your personnel will be confined to your assigned stations. Until further notice, any humans located in unauthorized quadrants will be terminated. You have five minutes to comply."_

With that, the AI ceased communication. Weatherly's blood chilled. He knew what the computer's pronouncement meant. Skynet was sending its complement of 800's after Marcus Wright. A waste of resources certainly, but not something within his control. He set about notifying his people of the change, putting Marcus out of his mind.

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"…**return to your designated living quarters immediately. I repeat, all residents are instructed to discontinue present activities and report to your living quarters immediately. You are to remain there until instructed otherwise. No exceptions. Weatherly out."**

Let's see if I can figure out what that means, Marcus thought, hearing the brusquely worded order over the Area 51 intercom. Looks like I'm done jackin' around with Brandon and his posse. Should be 800's in the halls any second now, and there's only going to be one thing that puts 'em there. Me. Being the wrong kind of popular sucked out loud. And this time around there was just him. No crew or family or fellow resistance to watch his back. He shrugged. Screw it. He was a grown up badass. He'd handle his own business. Protected by the seclusion of a recessed doorway, Wright set the heavy canvas bag on the floor in front of him. Unzipping it, he reached not for the Benelli but for something else, a means of defense as uncommon as he was.

The gun glinted dully in the subdued lighting of the corridor. Its' hand tooled construction was nothing any of John Connor's gunsmiths would have recognized. This death dealer was Marcus Wright's own personal brain child, the product of long hours of painstaking work. Asked to do so, anyone trying to describe the weapon in Marcus's hands might have been hard pressed to find the right words. Like the former death row inmate's singular combat knife, the ordnance had once been part of a T-800. Marcus had discovered the material easy to work with and unlike many, had no qualms about using metal provided by Skynet to strike back at humanity's systematic and hateful enemy.

The short barrel and folding metal stock put one in mind of a combat shotgun but the grips looked as if they belonged on a .45. He'd endowed it with as much silence as possible, but recognized that no gun could be made completely silent, despite what the movies had once portrayed. Since it would not work with any ammo already in use, he'd had to come up with that too and, by definition, had a very limited supply. Sanded to a non reflective silver grey by Marcus's incessant efforts, the gun had been borne out of his determination to create something able to penetrate the battle chassis of a T-800 instantly. He needed, they all needed, as many weapons as anyone was able come up with that would stop one of those beasts dead in its tracks first shot. As creative and skilled as they were, thus far none of John Connor's gun makers had produced such a device, at least not in the form of a shoulder firearm with a rifled bore. Marcus didn't, couldn't fault them. Their expertise at weapons construction kept Connor and the resistance in the fight. The gun he held wasn't a criticism, just a statement, hopefully an effective one. He'd only had the one chance to test both it and the distinctive form of ammunition it required and not under battlefield conditions. Nobody else knew about it yet. He'd been keeping its existence to himself until he could be sure it did what it was supposed to do. He would finally to get a chance to see if the thing worked as well as he hoped it would. Yeah, he snorted, one chance is right. 'Cause if it don't work Marcus, the first 8 you use it on will have a hand down your throat before you can fire twice. So, you gonna hide here in the doorway all day until they find you or what? He loaded his giant killer and moved out.

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The manic gleam in her eyes gave her away. So did the knife. Ten inches long and razor sharp, it graced her hand as if it were simply an extension of her fingers. It shone clean now, all traces of her earlier work wiped away. Kayla's body shuddered, her eyes half closed. Her free hand traveled slowly down her body from her throat to lower and then lower as her mind recalled the long night's pleasurable events…

…_Her own sex stirred with heat as Kayla watched Kim's nakedness straddle the prone resistance Colonel, not quite mounting him, not yet. She watched him reach up to fondle the other woman's ample breasts. She touched herself, imitating the touch of Kim's lover, imaging his strong hands on her instead of someone else. She'd thought of waiting until Barnes and Kim were consummating their night together, considering the irony of plunging into Kim at the same time Barnes did, but quickly ascertained it was not to be. How many times did she have to tell Stanley? Don't give them too much! Not too much. It's more fun when they can see it coming but can't do anything about it! It's more enjoyable when you can look in their eyes and know that they know what's about to happen to them and realize they're helpless to prevent it. No use, no matter how many times she said it, Kim just didn't get the same enjoyment out of their work that she did, didn't know how to, Kayla supposed. Well, after tonight, it wouldn't make a difference anyway. The decision had already been reached. Kim was inefficient, weak, a threat to all of them. She'd had actually mentioned to Tracey that she was thinking of asking the two visitors for permission to accompany them when they left Area 51, to travel back with them to their base when they departed._

"_Maybe" Kim had stuttered hesitant, "Maybe we don't have to kill them this time. Maybe we can just let them just go on their way, you know? Maybe I can go with them."_

_The not so casual comment, uttered when Kim and Kayla were preparing the meal they were about to offer their guests, sent a snick of rage flashing thru Kayla which she instantly concealed from her companion. Was the stupid cow crazy? They couldn't leave here! None of them could ever leave here! This was their home, their prison and their only refuge! If even one of them tried to desert it, Skynet would deem them all unsecure and useless! Its full wrath would fall on every one, leaving none alive! Didn't Kim think about that?! Didn't she care?! Obviously not, Kayla concluded. Stanley didn't care at all if her stupidity got them all dead. Well, I do, she thought. And so will Brandon. Giving Weatherly the news about Kim's intentions as soon as was possible, the beautiful African American woman's fate had been quickly decided. Waiting until the drugs in Barnes' stew had taken effect, rendering him unconscious, Kayla acted, unthinking, uncaring. Her knife flashed again and again, slicing into Kim's supple flesh! Blood spurted as her victim's terrified screams gurgled to silence over the course of what seemed like long minutes but was actually less than one. Kayla gasped for air as she came back to herself. Panting like a dog, her tongue licked out to taste the blood on her face, Kim's blood, hot and salty. Tracy smiled slowly as she realized she was covered in it from head to toe. She hadn't meant to enjoy it so much, but if she'd known she would…! It was better than having a man inside her! That caused her to think of Marcus Wright, the other one. He'd rejected her offering of food, rejected her! The bastard! How could he not want her?! How could he spurn the unspoken implication that her body was his to use as he pleased? She positioned the mutilated body of Kim Stanley next to the passed out Barnes and after putting the man's knife in his own hand she left to go clean herself and report to Weatherly. Then she would seek out Marcus. He'd humiliated her. He had to pay for that…_

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Moving quickly but cautiously, expecting at any second to come face to face with just under a quarter-ton or so of remorseless killing machine, Marcus carried his gun ready to fire. He kept looking over his shoulder, mindful of the fact that he was being tracked from all directions. He hadn't spotted any cameras so far. They'd probably been long since removed, but that didn't mean there was no way for the 800's to figure out where he was. Skynet had a million ways to seek out and trap prey, all of them programmed into its deadly factotums.

Ahead, the corridor squared off at a corner. A sense of danger Marcus had carried with him since his days of border hopping began wailing a familiar lyric at full volume. There was something or someone waiting immediately out of his sight. He didn't know how he was so sure of that, but he was, just as surely as he knew his name or could trace the line of Blair's lips with his eyes closed. A bit awkwardly, because he was trying with all his might be totally silent, he eased the heavy canvas bag with his and Barnes weapons and supplies to the gleaming flooring beneath his feet. Breathing slowly and deeply, his every bit of experience coming into play, he edged to the confrontation point with leopard like stealth. Since his unseen nemesis was most probably a T-800, his finger tightened on the trigger of his martial salvation. A microscopic ounce of pressure more, and it's mortally injurious load would be discharged, hopefully doing away with the threat. Scant inches more lay before him, first a foot, then less, then six, five, four, three, two-!

Pivoting, Marcus drew the final steadying breath he always did right before opening up on an opponent. Only his superb reflexes and half a lifetime's worth of having other's in his gun sights saved Kayla Tracey from being vaporized from the shoulders up.

Reminding him of the pygmy boa he'd once owned as a pet, she…_slithered_ towards him without making any sound, the look she was giving him unreadable. His earlier encounters with the woman had left him feeling in need of a shower. Now, for reasons he would never be able to express to anyone, he had a nearly overwhelming urge to back away from her as fast as he possibly could. He barely had a second to wonder what the hell she was doing out of her quarters against Brandon Weatherly's orders when she spoke.

"There you are Mr. California. What a bad boy you are! We've been looking _all _over for you! Just all over! Shame on you, shame, shame, shame!"

If he hadn't known better already, her almost playful tone could have been mistaken for another badly choreographed attempt to get him on his back, or for him to put her on hers. He was aware, however, that she had no such intentions in mind. Not anymore, not with 800's scouring the Dreamland campus for him. At best this was some pathetic attempt to capture the fugitive herself and gain points with Weatherly and Skynet. At worst, she could be trying to pin him down to this spot, giving the terminators time to locate him. Either way, he had to lose her fast. Time was winding down on both him and Anthony Barnes.

She was almost to him when the terrible look on her face changed to something more…certifiable. Laughing, she shifted, her right hand and arm coming from behind her back. In the split second he had to take it in, Marcus realized the raised hand wasn't empty! The huge black handled knife she wielded arched downward slicing for what would have been his jugular had he possessed the body of a normal man.

He was caught off guard in spite of everything and she might have succeeded in seriously injuring him had her stabbing blow reached its' intended target, but it did not. Before the knife could draw blood a massive powerful hand reached around the woman from behind, grasping her fragile neck and snapping it with the ease of breaking a matchstick. The T-800 tossed Tracey's lifeless shell aside negligently, orienting its' frigid gaze on Marcus.

With less than five feet of space between them, Marcus backed up, raised his newly minted Terminator destroyer and fired!

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**Author's Note: Yep, that's it. That's all for now. I was gonna write more but realized this seemed like a good place to stop. So I did. BWWWWWAAAAHHHAAAAA HAAAAA! The pygmy boa seemed to fit. I couldn't see Marcus owning a dog or cat, but a snake, yeah, that I could picture. See ya in Chapter 4, I hope. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Ok, here we go with Chapter 4. It's almost automatic by now but I guess I have to actually type the words. I have no claim or interest or connection to any of the Terminator franchise or any of the characters. Original characters are still mine. Enough of that. **

The Importance of Being Protein- Chapter 4

"I Don't Like Peas!"

Shaped like a fat deer slug, the round struck with savage precision. The resulting devastation surpassed Marcus's wildest expectations. The rate of spin on the bullet, assisted by the lands and grooves cut into the barrel, was the most exact he'd ever calculated. It had to be. Accuracy and penetration probably would never be more important than at this moment. Wright's shot punched thru the synthetic flesh and hyper alloy cocoon protecting the terminator's CPU, destroying the controlling hardware with fitting machinelike proficiency.

The terminator stopped moving forward, its' programming and connection with Skynet obliterated. That should have been the end of it, but as it turned out, there was more, much more. More than Marcus could have ever hoped for, even had he planned for what came next to happen.

With Wright looking on, the deadheaded T-800 began to vibrate like a tuning fork tapped against a metal surface. Its' arms, stiff and extended from its body, interrupted in the process of preparing to shoot Marcus, shook violently and the remainder of its body followed suit. A dull orange glow started inside the thing's head as the wiring and circuitry it was outfitted with smoldered. The smell of melting electronics and wiring filled the air.

Once, years ago, while living in Juarez, Marcus had witnessed the ghastly death of the cook in a cantina. The cheerful _concinero_ who always had a grin for the expatriate teen died with almost no warning when a pressure cooker exploded, scalding the smiling little fat man mercilessly and decapitating him in the next instant.

Observing the deconstruction of the 800, it dawned swiftly on Marcus Wright that history may be about to repeat. The pressure cooker was headed for the red zone.

Damn. Oh hell, Marcus thought, scrambling for cover. Turning, he ran for the only safety within range. Hoping desperately that it would be enough, he threw his body back around the corner he'd just turned, tucking into probably the tightest ball he'd been in since before Norah spit him out in the delivery room.

He barely made it. As his forehead kissed his knees in the fetal position, the T-800 shattered, flying apart like a blasted picture window. The force of the explosion turned razor sharp shards of metal into flying daggers. Sailing in all directions, many embedded deep in the steel walls. If he hadn't gotten out of the way, Marcus might have been seriously injured, his own flesh ripped apart. Easy meat for the terminators seeking him to grind underfoot. He thought about the explosive compound he'd used to pack the shell. It looked like he might have overdone it a little. The formula needed tweaking.

Still, his teacher, a guy who'd forever live in Wright's memory only as "D" would have been proud. In addition to showing Marcus how not to get his weapon snatched from his hands, a trick that had served him and others well many times, the hulking outlaw biker also taught Marcus how to build his own guns. The man had more knowledge of such craft than anyone Wright had ever met, including John Connor's weaponologists and they were prodigies at gun creation. A former Marine gunnery sergeant kicked out for slugging his CO, (and for screwing the officer's wife on the side) D's skills would ultimately be responsible for saving Marcus's ass on a number of occasions. Like this one. Big man, wherever you are, whatever happened to you, I owe you one more time. He got ready to get mobile again.

He peeked round the edge of the wall. He knew he had to get away from this location. The loud demise of one of their confederates would have the other 8's on him like flies on a steaming pile. His little popgun had passed its first test with flying colors, but he didn't want to push it. Not that far, not yet. 'Sides, Barnes still awaited. He couldn't help gawking like a gore junkie at a bad traffic accident as he passed what was left of the terminator. Its' twin nuke power cells fortunately remained intact. From the chest up the thing was in shreds, but its' bottom half…One of Norah's favorite movies had been "The Wizard of Oz." The part he'd liked best was when the house landed on the wicked witch. His five year old self had watched fascinated as the only remaining visible part of the villainous cackler, her legs and feet, curled up and shriveled. Skynet's destroyed killer lay over the body of the late and undoubtedly psycho Kayla Tracey in the same way. Only her legs and feet were exposed. She'd made his metal bones want to crawl out of their casing to get away from her, and true enough, her last intention had been to try to slice and dice him, but still…

He was not three feet removed from the smoking remains of the dead 8 when he heard the heavy footed approach of at least two more. Cursing their rapid response time he cast about frantically for a place to hide. He wasn't ready to take them on again. Not only would he be outnumbered, a critical factor when dealing with anything Skynet, but there was his new gun to think of. The barrel was still hot and if it blew up in his face and saved the 800's the trouble he might as well just go ahead and shoot his self in the ding dong. He needed a bolt hole and he needed one right now! Come on, come one, come on, come on, come on! Where, where, where, where, where, where, where?! Testing door latches as he passed them, he monitored the progress of the terminators. Doing a repeat of when he'd ditched his supply closet guest quarters was out. The death stalking him would notice a broken lock. Very, close! Very close! He was gonna be dead real quick if he didn't find someplace right now! He tugged on the next handle. It gave! Marcus, with his precious bag of supplies and weapons pushed in, closing the door as gently as possible behind him. Just pass on by, he willed to the bi-pedal assassins. I'm not in here. Just keep on going. He crouched inside trying not to pant audibly. No sense chancing that they'd hear it.

The metallic sound of door handles being snapped got his attention. Great! They had the same idea he'd had and were methodically breaking into and searching all the rooms along the corridor. Eventually they'd get to this one and it'd be game over. Damn, it's cold in here, he thought. No, no, not cold, freezing! Marcus realized his teeth were chattering as his body reacted to the temperature drop. He clenched his mouth shut and concentrated on controlling the shivering, willing his computer to boost his body heat. It helped. Not a lot, given the sub-zero surroundings, but enough. The 8's were getting closer. If they came in now, he'd be like a cockroach when the kitchen light got turned on. He'd better think of something! He looked around but couldn't see very well. He had no opportunity to kick his vision up a notch. The almost non-existent light gave him no help. Come on, Marcus, he prodded. Move! This ain't a good day to die!

Cautiously, he reached out, not wanting to knock anything over or off its' perch. The noise it made might become his eulogy. He touched plastic. The heavy kind used to wrap something. Whatever it contained was uneven and large. Without knowing what it was, he decided it would do for the additional layer of cover he needed so badly. Carefully lifting his supplies to avoid making a sound, he did a crab walk to the lee side of his hastily chosen refuge. From what he was able to tell, the object his hand had touched was shelved. Slowing inching his fingers upward, he felt another shelf and then another. Several layers then, each one with big, plastic wrapped bulges contained within. What was this freezing cold room? Where exactly was he? What sort of room had he chosen to hide in? Not that he'd really had a choice. It didn't matter at the moment, but if he survived the next few, it might be a good thing to know. It was VERY, VERY cold in here! Suddenly it occurred to him that he was most likely the warmest thing in the room. Probably a lot warmer than anything around him. Terminators were equipped with thermal tracking. They'd pick up a warm object in a room full of cold quicker than a beat of the heart walking around in John Connor's chest. With tremendous reluctance, he dialed his body temp back down as far as possible. This better be over soon. He couldn't stand being this cold for very long. He lay flat on the floor, very still, as the handle of his room's door was turned. Not daring to breath, he closed his eyes and thought of Blair. If he was about to die, he wanted her to be the last thing on his mind.

The 8 opened the door and entered. Marcus could practically feel the thing's head move from side to side as it spanned the room, scanning for him. The gun he'd used to destroy the other one was hidden under his body, gripped tightly in both hands. Cool now, it was ready for use once more. Hopefully he wouldn't need to. Afraid to warm them for fear of being discovered, his fingers were cold and stiff. They might not obey his bidding if it came to that.

After about thirty of the most tense seconds Marcus's had ever endured in his several colorful lifetimes, the 800 gave up, concluding its' prey did not reside here. Returning to the hallway, it continued on, crossing paths with the other searching 800 like two trains on parallel tracks.

Marcus waited, wanting to make sure they'd moved off before coming out of hiding. Skynet was sneaky, and so were its' byproducts. Finally, though, he knew they were really gone and it was safe to emerge. So cold he had trouble moving freely, he quickly increased his core temp. Now that he was no longer in danger of either being ripped into snack sized pieces or of freezing to death, he took a good look around, checking out his abnormally chilly environs. Since he could take the time, he also adjusted his vision. There, that was better, much better.

More feeling returned to his hands. He looked down to see what was under the thick, see-thru plastic sheeting that lay on the shelving he used to help get to his feet. With revulsion, he realized it was an unattached human hand. The arm the hand had formerly been at the end of and the remaining body parts were there also, individually packaged. The shelf was stocked with a dismembered human body. With growing disgust, he investigated the contents of the other shelves, oddly wishing Skynet had left him the capacity to vomit. The room was floor to nearly ceiling filled with bodies, in part and in whole. Why some of the dead had been cut into pieces and others had not he would probably never know and did not want to.

Wait, what the hell…? He ripped open one of the mostly clear…body bags (?) to get a closer look at something he thought he saw. He had to be sure of this. It was important, so important. He wanted to be wrong. He wanted badly to be mistaken, for the bad light and stress to be playing tricks on him, but right away knew he wasn't going to get off that easy. He was not wrong. He had seen what he thought he saw. Of the bodies that remained intact, some were clothed. On the sleeve of a jacket on one of the bodies Wright spied a gash of bright resistance red. He looked some more, investigating more bodies and found more evidence of the resistance. What especially rubbed him raw was that he recognized a couple of the faces. They were people he knew only well enough to nod at from a distance, but he knew them. He added it up. These dead people, at least some of them, were all that was left of John Connor's missing platoons. Drawn in like unsuspecting insects, the resistance personnel got stuck in Area 51's web and died for it. Marcus was still dealing with that fact when something else caught his eye.

In plastic sheathed repose, looking strangely peaceful given what she'd suffered, there in front of his eyes was the lovely nude body of Kim Stanley. Why was she here, resting with the dissected corpses of resistance fighters. As one of the Dreamland residents, why was she not given a more…respectful treatment? Wright remembered Brandon Weatherly's earlier words. _…"And clean Kim's body and take her to the locker… we don't waste here" _Those words made no sense then, but they did now. "The locker" was the room he was standing in, filled with the frozen meaty remains of what were once living human beings. Connor's scientists had figured out how to get agriculture going again under very limited conditions. The resistance's seed and vegetable stores, some of which Marcus occasionally got tasked with delivering to and sharing with other clusters of humans, grew daily. Meat and fish were another story. Both were rare and hard to come by, particularly fish, with Skynet's hydro terminators patrolling the waterways. Protein was an important component of the human diet. The occasional good luck of hunting parties eased the shortage for John Connor's headquarters base. Weatherly and the Area 51ers had found their own solution. Marcus fought to keep his mind from rejecting the notion, only because there was no other explanation that fit. Some insane, bizarre and ugly things had happened to, for and because of him since squalling his way into the world August 22, 1975, but this he had to admit had no equal. For the first time, he was glad for meeting Kayla Tracey. She had so put him off, so given him an uneasy vibe that he did not want to be around her let alone accept anything offered from her hand. The meat, the chunks of meat in the stew Barnes had eaten and he'd rejected. The delicious smelling savory stew full of delectable vegetables and meat that had so tempted him after a long day without food. The stew he'd have gulped down too had it not been urged on him by Kayla Tracey. That stew had contained human flesh. Weatherly and rest of the Groom Lake residents took advantage of the only source of meat allowed available to them by Skynet's virulent vigilance. To supplement their meager diet and hold off starvation, they'd gone Donner and become cannibals.

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"How long since their last check-in?" Connor demanded, entering the communications center.

It was the middle of the night, but John Connor was wide awake. He'd learned how to get by on little sleep years ago. Less time spent sleeping meant more time kicking Skynet in the balls. He'd slipped out of bed silently and dressed in darkness to avoid waking Kate or the baby. His fiery haired wife would never admit it, but her days were as stress filled and endless as his. Every extra ounce of rest she got she'd give back later caring for sick and wounded resistance fighters and figuring out how to keep medical running with a razor thin unstable resupply chain.

He'd taken extra consideration for their son, too. Robby had a mighty set of lungs and a serious dislike of being awakened in the wee hours of the morning. If his parents occasionally forgot that, he reminded them real fast, along with everyone else in earshot. Robert Brewster Connor was not the only baby on the base. Some of the other infant's parents had quarters close to the General's and John and Kate's son's cries sometimes started a chain reaction. Connor really wanted to avoid that. Especially since one of the best ways he and Kate had of getting their little one back to sleep, Marcus Wright's hypnotic storytelling ability, was not currently available. A base full of crying babies meant a bunch of grouchy, sleep deprived parents. John wanted to avoid that too. Tired people made deadly mistakes in combat. Hence his stealthy exit.

"Their last report was twelve hours ago, sir" the comm tech, a captain, supplied. "We haven't heard from either Colonel Barnes or Wright since. That puts them about six hours overdue."

Connor frowned. Six hours. There could be any number of reasons for the communications blackout. They might be in a dead zone, out of range or simply not in a position to call in. The small radio unit Barnes and Wright had taken with them was good equipment, but not one of Vince Lawler's Digitally Encrypted Communications Access Transmitters. The tech geek's new toys were far reaching but the supply was severely limited and in demand by Connor's entire resistance force. As much as he'd wanted to let a DECAT go with his ad-hoc recon team, troops on the line needed them more.

John had picked these two men for the mission very deliberately. Anthony Barnes was a former Force Recon Marine. Almost his entire military career before and after JD enabled him to operate independent of home base for long stretches of time. Though Kate was nominally Connor's second in command, her doctor chores captured most of her time and energy. Barnes served as Connor's right hand in most field ops. John Connor had a lot faith in the man and trusted him implicitly.

Marcus's history qualified him in a different way. For a former crook and a convict, Wright possessed a surprisingly strong work ethic. On any assignment his focus was absolute. Until the job was done, he'd tear a new one for anyone or thing that messed with achieving his objective. His hyper alloy high tech body and human brain with its' advanced computing power were a formidable combination. He thought very fast on his feet and adjusted faster. Connor knew that much of Marcus's smarts and strategic skills had nothing to do with Skynet's tampering. Forty-three successful bank heists meant a natural affinity for logistics and adaptation.

Of course, Marcus and Barnes didn't like each other much. Hopefully, he pondered in a dry moment, the reason we haven't heard from them isn't because they've killed each other.

Captain Lewis read his commander's mind. "You don't think one of 'em might have fragged the other, do you sir?" the officer smirked.

Before Connor could issue a rebuke a voice spoke up from behind them.

"I'll bet I know who you'd like to come out on the winning end of that Jack" Blair Williams chimed acidly. Marcus was risking his neck, again, on perilous business for Connor. Now her husband and Barnes had dropped off the grid and this smear of butt crack paste was making jokes. Yeah, yuck it up dick face.

Jack Lewis wilted under her flinty glare. Blair enjoyed a certain reputation among her peers as a tough broad, only "broad" wasn't the word they used, especially to her face. She wasn't shy about putting her size seven boot where it would do the most good and everybody knew it.

The captain managed to pull it together, almost. "Look, Williams, I, uh... uh, I didn't, uh, mean…" He sputtered to a stop. She looked ready to de-ball him.

Connor intervened to save Lewis's gonads. He realized her anger masked worry. "Blair, I don't think there's any reason to push the panic button. There could be a lot of things to explain why we haven't heard from them. And they don't all have to be bad. And Captain Lewis didn't mean anything, he just…spoke before he thought" John said with a telling look in the direction of Jack Lewis. Never mind that I'd just been entertaining the same notion. Not seriously though. Whatever else, Anthony Barnes and Marcus Wright would put any personal differences aside, for the sake of the mission. John didn't doubt that at all. He dismissed Lewis. The man was a good communications chief, but dumber than a bag of doorknobs about some other things. To say what he had out loud and in the hearing of Marcus Wright's wife was callous and stupid. Good thing I was here. He couldn't afford to lose Blair Williams to disciplinary action for breaking the man's jaw.

Look" John told Blair, "what I think we should do is give it another three hours. If we don't hear from them by then, I'll draw the command team together and we'll hash out some options. You're just getting in from recon? You've been thru debrief?" The last part was more statement than question. Williams and her wingman, Alan Walker had been in the air mapping the unfamiliar territory Connor's resistance group was about to enter. Before the main of personnel moved in, he wanted some idea of what dangers might already live in the new neighborhood. A look see by air saved a lot of wasted time and energy.

Covering her face with both hands, Blair heaved an exhausted sigh. The skies above them were allegedly clear of enemy aircraft. A tooth and claw effort by the resistance had torn another chuck of stomping grounds out of Skynet's grasp, but that didn't mean the human pilots could sleep on the job. They'd taken this bit of earth away from Skynet but since the AI was a sore loser, it could try to take what it had lost back at any time. The likeliest means of counterattack would come from the air.

Williams rubbed her face briskly, trying to chase away some of the weariness, then ran her fingers thru her newly shortened dark hair. Recently her long wavy locks had started getting on her nerves. After one notably taxing day, she'd come back from a flight, gone straight to hers and Marcus's quarters and taken the plunge with a sharp knife. Later, one of her buddies who had some skill as an amateur stylist had done what she could to repair Blair's annoyed hack job. The finished product was a becoming cut that suited the lady pilot and was much easier to live with. Marcus hadn't seen her new 'do yet. He'd always loved her long hair, loved to stroke it and bury his face in it. His reaction should be really interesting. Blair hoped she would get the chance to see it. She nodded in response to Connor's last statement.

"Go get some rest. I'll send somebody to wake you up when the time comes, one way or another. That's an order Williams. Go now." Connor's gruff tone was tempered.

Too tired to argue, Blair nodded and turned for her new temporary home. She had a lot of lying awake and staring at the ceiling to do in the next few hours. She might as well get started.

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No matter how hard he tried, Barnes couldn't find enough slack in his restraints to ease the burning cramping in his shoulders and arms. Desperate for some relief from the agony, he tried arching his back as much as possible but the half inch or so away from the wall that he achieved didn't help much. As soon as he settled down, the pain came back with a vengeance, as if offended that he would try to banish it even for an instant.

Following some half-assed kangaroo court trial that must have lasted all of a minute and a half, the Area 51er's, getting in a few kicks along the way, dragged him to their detention area and chained him up like he was foaming at the mouth. Probably trying to decide which way of killing me will hurt the most, he snorted angrily. His hours of isolation accomplished two things. The first was that it gave his head a chance to clear. He still had no idea who was responsible for Kim getting dead, but he did know it wasn't him. He remembered the pheromone fueled foreplay and how much he'd enjoyed it and the sight of Kim's nakedness, but he'd done nothing else. The drugs she slipped into his food made sure of that. He didn't kill her. Even if he'd wanted to harm her, the doctored stew had taken him out too fast. Not that it mattered. It was unlikely he'd ever get a chance to prove his innocence and he wasn't sure anybody cared. The other thing being trussed up like this made him think about was how uncomfortably his present circumstances mirrored Marcus Wright's arrival in the resistance camp so many months ago. Now Barnes had some notion of what it must have been like for Marcus to wake up bloody and disoriented, bound hand and foot with heavy chains, forced to brave the hostility of strangers, people intent on killing him. He remembered staring at Wright hatefully, the memory of his dead brother crowding out the sight of the prisoner in front of him dangling over the maw of the huge hole. The machines had taken from him the only family he'd had left. Barnes had wanted to scream his rage into the night, to savage anything machine that he could lay his hand to. He could not do that, but there was Marcus, practically in Barnes face, the shredded flesh of his chest and torso revealing the terrible reality of his existence. Anthony Barnes did not see a man. Did not see the dread and fear come into Wright's eyes as Barnes loaded and fired the gun nearly point blank. Barnes vision, focused on the brother he would never talk to again did not see the resolve behind the victim's eyes that he would not beg for mercy; didn't hear the fury hidden underneath Marcus's painful howl after being shot in the chest. Barnes's mind hadn't come up for air until Blair entered, faking a summons from Connor prior to engineering Wright's escape.

He thought he'd forgotten that night, but it hadn't gone anywhere, only waited for him to remember. Not much chance of Barnes making any kind of a great escape. He had no allies in this place. He didn't figure he could count on Marcus. No way Wright is gonna stick his head in the noose for someone he hated. This is his big chance to be rid of me. All Marcus had to do was ride out the storm and then get back home with some made up story for Connor. Barnes knew he was done. He wasn't going to get out of this. He was frustrated that he would not fulfill his final mission for John Connor and that the truth about his death would probably never be known. His helplessness to change anything made his situation worse.

The furious sound and flash of some kind of explosion in the corridors near his prison snapped his head upright. What the hell!? Damn, were they finally coming for him? And what was all the noise about? It sounded like some kind of battle was being fought just beyond the confines of his cell. That was crazy! His confusion magnified as the hallway grew quiet. The cacophony of noise faded to into silence. Acrid smoke drifted thru the small barred window and seeped under the steel door, making breathing more difficult for him. He began to gasp and choke, fighting as best he could to keep fresh air coming into his lungs. He stiffened in readiness as the door to his cell began to swing wide, so seldom used that it screeched slightly. This was it. He was all out of time and they were here to kill him. He wasn't going to plead with them. They could cut his tongue out before he'd do that. Anthony Barnes would show these scientists hiding from the world in their hole in the ground how a resistance fighter died.

Fooled by long hours of negligent light, his eyes were unprepared for more of it coming thru the opening door. Barnes almost growled his defiance, but stopped before the sound emerged from his throat. The drugs probably weren't all the way out of his system. Plus he was exhausted and in considerable pain. Maybe it was a combination, a delirium of some kind. That had to be it, 'cause what was he thought he was seeing couldn't be happening. Standing in the doorway, framed by the billowing eye irritating smoke still coming from the corridor, wearing a smarmy grin he knew for sure would make Barnes want to turn around and climb the wall he was shackled to, was Marcus Wright.

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I guess this is what it might have been like, Marcus surmised as he raced down the hallway with Barnes on his heels, if Manny and the rest of the crew had succeeded in their wild plans to bust him out of Longview in the days before his scheduled execution. Not for the first time, Marcus was glad all his friend's crazy schemes had come to nothing. They would have sacrificed themselves for naught and he would have died anyway. _And been resurrected by Skynet to be used as some sort of puppet assassin, _a small part of his brain sang nastily_._ Yeah, but that didn't happen did it? So shut up and pay attention. He and Barnes still had a long way to go to get out of here and several more terminators and who knew what else stood in between them and the surface. There wasn't time to deal with his Skynet monkey right now, maybe later.

The pair of escapees rounded another corner. Barnes eyes grew wide and he stopped running, utterly shocked by the sight of a dead T-800, the terminator's body a black and twisted metal ruin. The thing looked as if it had been napalmed then battered by an angry giant baby.

"What the _hell_ happened to that thing?" Barnes demanded of Wright, starting to run again, catching up to the other man.

"_This_ happened to it Barnes!" Marcus replied irritably, gesturing to a peculiar looking gun strapped across his chest.

"What kind of gun is that? Where'd you get it?" Barnes questioned breathlessly, struggling to keep up. His stiff, sore muscles didn't care for the abuse.

"We don't have time for this Barnes!" Marcus snapped. "I'll explain it all later, in detail! Now can we please concentrate on getting the hell out of here?!"

Without waiting for compliance, Wright surged ahead. He knew Barnes, no matter how beaten and bruised he was, would keep up. It was probably a good thing they were too busy for chatter. A deep conversation with a lot of explanation involved was the last thing he wanted to have with Colonel Anthony Barnes.

The terminator he and Barnes stepped over on their way out of the Area 51 detention unit was the second casualty of Marcus's new invention. Like a true machine chess master, the AI had anticipated Wright's intention to liberate his imprisoned comrade and stationed a terminator in his path to intercept. Since he knew what to expect this time, Marcus's reactions were faster when the T-800 disintegrated, but he still couldn't help but be impressed by the level of dissolution. Clearly the weapon needed work, but the resistance would have to find a way to reproduce it on a practical basis. With Skynet inventing new, deadlier, more advanced means of eliminating humans every day, it was an arms race people could not afford to lose.

The two men hit a stopping point, pausing to catch their breath as they peered round the corner into the long corridor ahead. Marcus could feel the, ah, he still had to come up with a designation for his new gun, but he could feel the heat from the last use. At this stage of development it was a single shot weapon, not really a good thing. He'd need to fix that too, but was certain Connor's people would only be too glad to help him lick the problem.

"What now?" Barnes asked. His combat reflexes were fully returned.

"Here you go" Marcus answered, reaching into the duffel he was hauling by its canvas sling over one shoulder, handing him a couple of items Barnes was more than a little familiar with, the Colonel's own sidearm, a Desert Eagle similar to the one Blair carried and Barnes's combat knife. A purist, the former Marine nearly always wore a KA-Bar strapped to his left leg.

"Thought you might like those back" Wright commented dryly.

Barnes accepted them without comment, affixing the blade to its customary position. Checking the gun for readiness out of habit, he nodded his thanks. Being armed was a natural state for him.

"Where'd you find my stuff? And what the hell are T-800's doing here? Where are Weatherly and the others? How come they ain't coming after us?"

Barnes rapid fire questions both annoyed and amused Marcus. While he fervently wished the other man would just shut up and run, he understood the desire for answers. I'd want details too if my last few hours had been spent chained to a wall in the dark waiting for somebody to come and skewer my ass like a shish kabob.

"Barnes, I told you, I'll explain everything when I get the chance. Right now, we have to get to that elevator! There are more of those things! That's not the only one!" Marcus growled. By his count, there were at least six more T-8's to deal with and knowing Skynet's penchant for malicious invention, plenty more nasties to contend with before they saw the natural sunlight above again.

One thing they shouldn't have to worry about was Brandon Weatherly and the rest of the human inhabitants of Groom Lake. He still couldn't believe how _that_ had come about. Marcus didn't surprise easy. He'd just about seen it all, or thought he had in his ferociously untraditional cycle of days, but this post Judgment Day life was continually throwing him one curve ball after another and Area 51 was the latest. The place was like a piñata. Once you wacked it with the stick and cracked it open stuff just kept falling out.

After leaving the consummate blackness of the "locker" behind, he'd cautiously resumed making progress to where Barnes was being held. Skynet had all kinds of ways of locating him, but he only had his enhanced senses to help him stay ahead of his pursuers, so he stayed sharp.

Marcus heard the pair of 8's long before they got close enough to detect him. He slumped dispirited for a few seconds. It didn't matter how much fancy shoot 'em up he could call upon against a pair of the things. He might get one, but that would give the second 800 all the time it needed to rip him into teensy weensy tiny, very tiny flesh covered metal pieces. Fight wasn't an option, but he could run and hide, something he was good at. He started trying doors. It worked once, so why not hope it worked again? A begging man, he'd take whatever opening he could get. As the 8's got closer to his position, he was shaky with relief when the handle of the next door turned with ease. He threw himself inside. He scarcely dared to breathe as the T-800's arrived, patrolling for him. They passed by, but he decided to stay put until sure they were far enough away. He looked around, but he couldn't see anything. With the terminators so close, the lights had to stay off.

This room was different from the freezing repository of human remains. Warm enough, it was chilly but bearable. Like he'd done in the Arizona cave where he, Connor and Barnes had once hidden from an H-K, Marcus turned up his vision so he could take a look at his surroundings.

It looked like he was in some kind of utility room. Overhead he saw heavy use pipes. As big around as his thigh, he figured this was probably part of the plumbing. The pipes weren't all. Set into the wall, Marcus saw banks of electronics complete with LED lights and switches or buttons beneath serving as controls. This looked like some sort of power plant. Labels identified what the control was for. He didn't have time to check them all out but did investigate a few. He found one of them _very _interesting. In neat block lettering Wright could see the words **ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS**. Environmental controls? What the hell did that mean? Looking a little closer, it seemed the "environmental controls" were responsible for handling 51's air purification and ventilation and…what kind of weird science shit was this? These controls were obviously connected to the living quarters and Marcus saw one of the subcategories bore the title _**Anesthezine Gas. **_Did that mean what he thought it did? Could the residents, tucked up neatly in their assigned quarters courtesy of Skynet, be literally sent off into sleepy time at the push of a button? With the 800's being neutralized one by one, the AI could decide at any time to release Weatherly and the rest from their confinement to once again help with the search. More bodies would increase the odds against him and Barnes. As whack as it sounded, Marcus might be able to stop that before it could start. Well now, how about that? Thinking about Kayla Tracey, the dead resistance fighters being used as food and how Barnes had been tricked into partaking, he'd pressed the round red button.

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The fleeing pair came to a junction Barnes recognized. They were almost back to the large common room where he'd met the beautifully devious Kim. The memory of her mutilated corpse passed before his mind's eye. He shook it off. No time for that now. The hallway teed off, go left and they'd be standing in the common room. Go right, living quarters for the 51's. Hours before Kim had led him in that direction for a night that morphed from pleasure to horror with frightening swiftness. The pair of Area 51 elevators he and Wright were trying to reach was a hundred feet or so past the common room. Barnes broke left but soon noticed Marcus was not following. He back tracked and caught up with the other man.

"What are you doing?! Elevator's the other way and those 800's are going to be here any second! We ain't got no time to screw around!" the Colonel fumed.

"Our communications equipment is in Weatherly's quarters!" Marcus informed him in an aggravated voice. "If we pull off getting out of here and back up top, we need some way of letting Connor know what's going on here!" he said, reminding Barnes of their original mission.

"We don't know what's going on here!" Barnes sniped back at him. "So far, all we've found are these crazy science types trying to hide down here from Skynet and pretend like Judgment Day happened to everybody else!"

"There's a lot more to it than that" Marcus replied, more subdued than Barnes expected. The memory of the macabre "locker" and what it all meant made Wright want to yank out his brain and give it a good scrubbing. Then there was twisted Kayla and the "Wiz" moment after he'd killed the terminator. He'd have to break it all down for Barnes eventually, but was surprised to discover he was dreading it.

"What do you me-?" Barnes began.

"Not now, okay?" Marcus put him off again. "We retrieve the radio, and get to the elevator. Once we're in I'll… I can fill you in, alright?" He made it sound like a request. To his relief, Barnes backed off.

"Yeah, alright, fine, but then I want to know some things!" The Colonel insisted. He followed Marcus down the corridor, past where he'd been with Kim and then turned left down another hall. Nervously, Barnes, with their only RPG tube prepped with their only shell, kept watch behind them, expecting at any moment to see a T-800 arrive to try and kill them. Barnes brain overflowed with questions but he'd respect his promise to wait for the answers it craved. He might not care much for Marcus Wright personally but respected the other's competence and coolness under fire. He didn't want to mess with that. Hopefully, his info wouldn't be long in coming.

They came to Weatherly's office cum living space. Marcus busted the locked door with ease. He and Barnes entered and stopped just inside, the Colonel looking puzzled and Wright looking pleased at the sight which greeted them.

Half in and half out of his chair, looking as though he'd tried and failed to rise and make it to the door, Brandon Weatherly sagged unconscious. Head resting on the edge of his computer keyboard, the 51 leader's mouth hung open, drool fouling the keys, arms dangling loosely at his sides.

"Oops!" Marcus cracked. "Weren't expecting to get hit with your own knock out gas, were you Brandon?" he mocked snidely.

Barnes quickly located the radio and one other thing he'd seen which he figured might prove valuable in their flight from Dreamland. Unseen by Marcus, he pocketed it. He was dying to ask what had happened to Weatherly. Wright clearly knew, but bound by his word, Barnes held his peace.

"Got it" the Colonel said, holding up the small long range radio. "Let's get out of here!"

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_The resistance fighters vacated the room, not noticing the swivel of a tiny lens mounted in one corner of the ceiling. Situated so that it could take in the entire room, the device continuously relayed its findings to a central receptacle where the data was processed along with that received from the other living quarters. Whether for security purposes, thru paranoia or voyeurism, some of Groom Lake's long dead creators had mandated that what were then offices and now being used as mini apartments be placed under twenty-four hour watch. _

_Following Judgment Day, the new tenant Skynet had at first, without humans to worry about, not bothered repairing the out of date surveillance system in favor of attending to more pressing problems. Eventually, the resistance attacked and Skynet allowed them to think it had been driven out of the complex. Using almost the same method of deception it employed when executing its plan to locate and terminate the human military leadership, the AI "played possum." The humans lacked sufficient numbers to occupy their recently "won" prize, leaving the place, as they believed, unoccupied, satisfied that Skynet had been evicted. Their error would prove costly, not only to the resistance but to other humans as well. _

_After the world disaster of Judgment Day and the struggle to free Dreamland from Skynet control had passed, Brandon Weatherly and his companions and what was left of their families straggled back in to Area 51 to find it deserted. At least that's what they'd thought in the beginning. By the time the latter day government researchers discovered their mistake it was too late to run. Because it considered them useful tools, Skynet did not immediately terminate the scientist's and their loved ones. It co-opted them as symbiants making certain they were always aware that their collective welfare and that of those they cared about was tied to Skynet's will and satisfaction with their performance. _

_Masquerading as a safe haven for the resistance was only one of the tasks Skynet required of Weatherly and the others. Their scientific and technical acumen was utilized to help build and maintain its machine appendages, the H-K's and terminators. But even further, Area 51's initial purpose was about research and development of new increasingly more advanced weapons systems. That suited Skynet right down to the ground. The machines it used to fight the war against John Connor and the resistance would need to be replaced by more efficient killing tools. Its arsenal required a perpetual upgrade. Skynet planned, of course, to someday terminate Weatherly and the rest of the humans it currently used as slave labor, but for the present, they were competent as drones to forward the AI's program. Skynet kept them under close scrutiny particularly in their "private time." One of the first assignments the 51's had received from Skynet was repair of the close circuit camera system monitoring the one time offices. The entire system was not repaired as of yet, but it could keep track of the areas where the humans ate, slept and mated. In fact, Skynet often observed when they copulated, clinically dissecting their coitus to see if it could decipher ways of disrupting the human capacity for reproduction and noting that "sex" often served them as a release of mental and emotional tension. It "helped them feel better" a concept the AI did not completely grasp. Some of the unfortunate resistance fighters supplied to the AI by Brandon Weatherly and his group were used as fodder to further Skynet's inquisition into this and other aspects of human anatomy and psychology. Others it allowed the 51 residents to keep as a food source. It interested the supercomputer greatly that humans could be induced, under sufficient pressure, into consuming one another to ensure their own survival. At any rate, keeping them under its electronic eye proved eminently productive to Skynet. Weatherly and the rest of the humans living in Area 51's domain were Skynet's never ending experiment, always on camera. One of those tireless video minions captured the presence and departure of Marcus Wright and Anthony Barnes as they came and went from Brandon Weatherly's chambers. It had taken some time, with a baffling loss of contact with several of its T-800's along the way, but Skynet could now pinpoint the location of its quarry to within meters. It contacted the remaining 8's with coordinates and instructions. _

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"It's been fifteen hours since we last heard anything from Colonel Barnes or Wright" John Connor began the briefing of his command staff. "It's time to decide what that means and what to do about it."

Kate slipped in silently as he said this last, finding her way to his side.

Remembering his promise to Blair Williams, he sent a runner to retrieve the sleeping pilot. While he waited, John did a visual survey of his officer's moods. Colonel Thompson, Blair's immediate CO, seemed relaxed but alert, his usual state of being, as did Majors Monica Gentry and David Perry. Nothing to worry about there, Connor decided. Major Garrison's attitude, however, concerned him some. He was trying to conceal it, but Garrison was vibrating with eagerness. To do what, John wondered. He'd let the major stay in a command post because despite his other flaws, Matt Garrison had proven himself to be an able field leader in the past. Should he be needed in that capacity again, Connor wanted Garrison available, but sometimes, in an unguarded moment, Connor would catch a look in the man eyes which gave the General pause. It told him he'd been wise to keep Major Garrison on a short leash.

Blair William's arrival kicked the meeting back into motion. John waited until she was seated at the back of the room before resuming.

"Three platoons and now a reconnaissance team have disappeared after making landfall at Area 51" he stated flatly, borrowing a nautical term. "And not just any recon team either, people. Colonel Barnes qualifications at operating on his own for extended periods of time in hostile or undeclared territory are pretty well established, and we all know what Marcus is capable of" he completed with a squib of a look in Blair's direction. "Now it looks as if they've fallen victim to the same unknown threat. I've had enough. It's time to do something about whatever is responsible once and for all. I'll take comments and suggestions."

"Sir, it's pretty obvious now that the problem's is Area 51. That's where they've all dropped off the scope" Major Perry spoke up.

"Well there's a genius observation, Perry" Matt Garrison remarked disagreeably. Perry's face tightened.

"If you have nothing constructive to offer Major Garrison, you're dismissed" Connor broke in, quashing the clash instantly.

Garrison flushed and fell silent but didn't leave. John turned to address Perry again. "Go on with your thought, David."

Encouraged, Perry carefully avoided looking at Matt Garrison as he continued. "General, we took 51 away from Skynet months ago, but we didn't have the bodies to occupy it. What if…sir what if Skynet move back in after we left? Just because we haven't detected it doesn't mean that didn't happen and it'd clear up a lot of questions."

"If Skynet returned to Groom Lake after the resistance forces moved on, we'd have had some indication by now" Garrison felt compelled to disagree. "With the kinds of resources available there, it would have used them against us."

"General Connor, I have to agree" Mike Thompson contributed for the first time. The flight commander shrugged. "Skynet still has an air presence in the area, but it's nowhere near as pervasive as it was. I can't see that bastard backing off. If it had access to 51's tech why wouldn't it have used it?"

"Uh uh" Perry argued, refusing to drop his argument. "It is possible. How much do we know about the people that are living there now? Really, how much do we know? This Weatherly character, he used to work there right? I mean before the balloon went up. So did some of the rest. But other than that, we know almost nothing. They aren't part of the resistance, are they? Our blood took that place back for them, and they just walk back in and act like nothing happened. Never did care much for that."

"Lots of people aren't part of the resistance, David" Monica Gentry insisted levelly. "We're fighting for them too, remember? There are lots of civilians just trying to stay alive, find enough to eat, keep the machines off their backs. Just cause they haven't picked up a gun and joined up don't make 'em the enemy. Besides it sounds like you're saying these folks are working with Skynet! You ever heard of that happening? Has anyone ever heard of that happening? Skynet kills humans, all humans. It doesn't make exceptions."

"How do we know that it doesn't?" Connor pointed out. He'd listened to the debate with interest. Of all of them, John Connor had the most experience dealing with Skynet. No one alive knew or understood the AI better than he did. The thing that stayed foremost in his mind about his adversary was its capacity to evolve. Skynet could, and did, learn and grow. It, adapted, twisted and turned like a living thing. It wanted humans gone from the planet, but the methods it used to achieve its goal were always changing. Using humans as slaves or Judas goats wouldn't be a problem for it. He had to take the possibility seriously, however uneasy it made him or anyone else. "Skynet has no limits. I think we have to consider that Major Perry may be on to something."

"Excuse me" Blair's soft words drew every eye to her. Only a captain, she was the junior officer in the room. If Connor hadn't promised to keep her in the loop, she probably wouldn't be here now, so she'd been trying to keep her mouth shut. If Perry was right though, if Skynet was in 51 using humans as sucker bait, then Marcus and Barnes had walked right into a deadly trap. That thought freaked her out too much to stay quiet.

"Excuse me" she said again, "but if it's possible Skynet slipped back in on the sly after the resistance pulled out, how do we know it ever really left?"

"We bled all over that place to get it back, Williams" Garrison snarled, selectively omitting the fact that he'd not been in that fight, but Blair, at the controls of her A-10 "Warthog" had played a very active role. "You think we wouldn't be sure it was gone before we cleared out? We have the best tech and computer minds in the resistance on this base and a lot of them went to Nevada. If that's the best you've got, get back in your corner and try not to say anything else."

He couldn't have seen it coming when he got out of bed, but today was Major Matt Garrison's lucky day. Before either John Connor or Blair Williams got the chance to come back at him for his runaway mouth, the entrance to command flew open. The messenger, a young corporal babbled excitedly.

"It's them, sir! Colonel Barnes and Mr. Wright! It's them, General! We got 'em, sir! They're on the radio! And they're calling for help!"

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"Get down!" Marcus shouted, taking Barnes to the floor in a flying leap, covering the other man as much as he could with his armored body. Rounds from the T-800's blazing energy weapon sliced thru the air Marcus had vacated seconds before, blackening and bubbling the walls.

Barnes shrugged out from under Marcus with difficulty, scuttling awkwardly for the loaded RPG tube knocked loose by Wright's life saving intervention. Experience and hatred of his enemy helped sure up his aim as he fired their only shell at the charging cyborg executioner. The powerful explosive took the machine squarely in the center of its chest. Battered off its feet by the martial physics of the rocket propelled grenade, the terminator flopped backward, sliced in half. The SK7 plasma rifle, Skynet's version of a light assault gun, flew out of its hands and landed at Marcus's feet. Wright scooped it up and bagged it. Skynet giveth, Marcus taketh away. Obscenely, the top portion of the T-800 resumed its attack, crawling towards the two men it had been sent to kill. With skilled ease Barnes shot the mangled head, watching the glowing red eyes fade to dead.

They were at the elevator. Marcus palmed the old school call button with his hand, briefly wondering at the anachronism of such a device. Area 51 was futuristic Babylon and yet Weatherly and the others nonetheless still used basically the same system of getting to and from the surface perfected by Elisha Otis in 1853. Guess they were too busy compiling their resistance fighter recipe cookbook to worry about updating the lift. He heard mechanical grinding as the car responded. The wait seemed eternal.

"That does it for the RPG's!" Barnes yelled unnecessarily, passing up his sidearm in favor of his M4A1. It might not stop a T-800 by itself, but it could slow one down long enough for him and Wright to make it into that elevator.

"What's taking so long!?" the Colonel griped. The rest of those 8's were gonna be here any second. He pounded the button pointlessly with the side of his fist.

"How should I know Barnes? I didn't build the damn thing!" Marcus responded, utilizing the Benelli. He wanted to save his 800 killer until there was no choice. It could only take out one of the machines. Four would remain. The math sucked. He remembered the plasma rifle hoping he would not have to use a weapon he was only minimally familiar with. His artificial gut clenched as the balance of Skynet's in-house enforcers arrived firing at the cornered resistance pair. The narrow space became a cauldron of smoke, lead and plasma fire.

Backing as far into the shrinking refuge of the small alcove as possible, Marcus and Barnes were able to dodge the first deadly barrage but knew the next one wouldn't miss. Shoving Barnes behind him, Marcus used his newly created gun and fired on the nearest 800 as the elevator finally arrived with a pedestrian sounding _**ding**_!

Like its brethren before it, the terminator stopped as if it had hit an invisible wall and began to shudder like it was having an epileptic fit. Aware of what was about to happen, Marcus grabbed Barnes by a handful of clothing, throwing the other man unceremoniously into the elevator and diving in after him with their precious radio and duffle of supplies.

"What the hell was that about!?" Barnes questioned angrily, landing against the car's far wall with a painful thump. He scowled crossly at Wright as he recovered. "You trying to kill me or something!?"

"Shut up and get your head down!" Marcus shouted, slapping a round plastic button etched primly with the letters SF LVL. That better mean surface level, Wright thought, 'cause we're out of road down here. He put himself between the more vulnerable Barnes and the pending fireworks.

At the same instant the doors swooshed shut, the other 800's arrived, one punching the steel doors with a hyper-alloy hammer blow, and the head shot terminator went **BLAMMO**! The other four 8's had no chance to react as the volcanic destruction of their companion swept thru their ranks like a scythe. Pin wheeling off at every possible angle, the deadly remnants of the killed 800 attacked with indiscriminate zeal. Slicing into the surrounding terminators, the deathly missiles laid open the face and throat of one and dug deep into the eye socket of another, obscuring its vision. With a third, magic happened. It became collateral damage. Too close its destroyed companion, a shard penetrated its' CPU. The terminator face planted with enough force to leave an inch deep impression in the floor. The last suffered gouging wounds the length of its body. All four were slammed against the walls like rag dolls from hell by the concussive force of the blast and knocked momentarily offline.

Crouched on the floor of the elevator, Anthony Barnes and Marcus Wright could only hold on as the concussive wave traveled up the shaft and reached the upwardly mobile conveyance. The car rocked precariously, cables groaning ominously from the strain. The trapped passengers had no recourse. They had to ride it out and hope the steel box containing them could take the punishment.

The elevator proved to be as tough and well made as all of Dreamland's other components. It held. The car kept going, moving out of damage range. Lights dimmed and came back as the trembling discontinued. Marcus monitored their progress. Five more floors and they'd be looking at sunlight for the first time in what seemed like forever.

"Alright" Barnes stated hotly, "We're out, and I'm not waiting any longer. What the hell kind of gun is that and where'd it come from!? And what happened to Weatherly and his people! Where'd those damn 800's come from?! You owe me some answers. I want 'em!"

Marcus bristled at the interrogative tone. "I don't believe you! You're alive, Barnes! You're welcome, you ungrateful-" he got a grip on his temper. Now was not the time. Remember your promise to Sam, remember your promise to Sam, he chanted silently. He took a deep breath to steady himself.

"I made it, Okay? Put it together myself, from dead terminator parts. The metal's good for working guns and it's plentiful! I made up my own shells too! Somebody taught me how to do both a long time ago! Happy?!" Wright shot back furiously. With effort, he banished the temptation to wrench open the doors and toss Barnes out.

"You know those things have nuclear power cells, right? Just like you do?" Barnes asked, though not nearly as unpleasantly. His hostility seemed to have faded.

"Yes, of course I know" Marcus answered, patience running very thin. "That's why I try real hard _NOT_ to aim for the torso, so I _don't_ rupture one of them and blow myself to kingdom come! I may not be the Maximum Resistance Colonel Anthony Barnes, but some things even I understand!" Two more floors, only two more.

Barnes was silent for a moment. "Thanks for not leaving me." The statement was a bit grudging, like it was being dragged out of him. "I kind of thought you would, it's not like you didn't have enough reason to." The admission was the closest Barnes would come to an apology for his past treatment of Marcus.

"When are you going to get it, Barnes?" Marcus asked, wry twist to his lips, "we're on the same side, whether either of us wants to be or not." He nodded his head at the flashing floor indicators. "Almost there."

And they were. Thirty seconds and the elevators doors would open to reveal the stark environs of the Nevada desert. Both rose to their feet, gathering up guns and belongings. The seconds ticked down. They were almost free. The seconds ticked down.

Abruptly, the car jerked roughly to a halt and Marcus and Barnes were thrown to the floor and plunged into total darkness!

Unprepared for the hard stop, Marcus banged his head hard enough against the paneled side to leave a dent in the wood.

"OWWW!" he yelped, hand going to the affected spot. "What the-!"

Dealing with his own unexpected consequences, Barnes dragged himself on to hands and knees. "Ouch! You alright?!" he inquired.

"Yeah, Ow!" Marcus grunted. "What happened!? Why'd we stop?!" He pressed buttons but got nothing.

"I, I don't know! Help me, help me get this open" Barnes supplied, groping for and finding the elevator's floor panel in the pitch blackness. Together, they got it open enough to take a look down below. There wasn't much light.

"I can't see anything!" Barnes hissed, frustrated.

Marcus turned up his visual acuity and took a look . Oh. Shit. "I can. We got trouble. A lot of it. We need to get out of this thing right now!" he said, inspecting the elevator's roof for any other possible exit. Urgency coated his every word.

"Why?" Barnes asked, alarmed. He knew Marcus Wright didn't rattle easily.

Marcus told him. Barnes looked back down thru the small square opening. He was unable to see them, but knew Wright didn't lie. Some feet below Skynet's three rebooted terminators, damaged but functioning, were doing a slow, inexorable hand over hand climb up the twisted lines of cable, drawing ever closer to their trapped quarry.

**Author's note: At last, chapter 4 completed. There's more to come. Have to say this since I mentioned it but, of course I don't have a connection to the Wizard of Oz books or movies either, but I did love both the book and the movie. As always, constructive criticism is welcome, emphasis on the word "constructive. Thanks and see ya next chapter!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: On with the story. I thought this might be the last chapter, but it looks like there will be 2 more. I'll say it anyway 'cause I gotta. I have no claim financial, creative or otherwise to any of the Terminator characters or franchise. Original characters are still mine. Please excuse me. I have to go relock the door. They keep trying to escape. I'll go catch them so I can write Chapter 5.**

The Importance of Being Protein- Chapter 5

What Happens in Vegas…

_[Functionality Update]__Skynet sent the imperative for a status report. _

**[**_**System corruption within acceptable parameters**_**] **

Each of the three terminators responded in turn to their creator. All reported impaired but still mission capable. Revitalized, the cyborgs set about fulfilling their duty to Skynet. They had been charged to capture or terminate the rogue unit, (the AI still regarded him thusly) designated "Marcus Wright" and to eliminate the human, Anthony Barnes.

The stainless steel elevator doors, misshapen by the blast, were ripped from their housing and tossed negligently aside. No thought was spared for the hazardousness of the venture, since terminators did not experience fear. In concert, the trio of 800's leapt into the semi-darkness of the elevator shaft, clasping sections of the cables in their unbreakable grip. Each of three heads tilted upward, focusing on the disappearing car. Lighting within the shaft failed as the power died. The 8's were undeterred. Their enhanced vision eliminated the need for artificial aid. Above them, the box containing their prey slammed to a halt. Single minded of purpose, they began to ascend.

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"_You must awaken, Brandon Weatherly" Skynet _commanded using the voice of Weatherly's dead wife Karen. Her face color changed on the wall mounted monitor behind the keyboard on his desk. The AI had been pumping recycled air into the 51's living quarters for some time, but the anesthetizing gas that put them to sleep proved difficult to neutralize. Wright and Barnes were more resourceful and evasive than Skynet had anticipated. Using the human slaves of Area 51 as a backup was a viable alternative.

"_You will awaken now, Brandon Weatherly"_ The supercomputer demanded more stridently, upping the volume.

Bleary and nauseous, Weatherly slowly hauled his head up off the saliva drenched keys, using his shirt sleeve to wipe the slime from his cheek. Eyelids fluttering as he struggled to remain conscious, he leaned over, locating the waste can by feel and vomited into it violently. Skynet, of course, was unsympathetic.

"_All personnel are released from confinement, Brandon Weatherly. You are to assemble teams at once. They will assist the 800 units in pursuit of Marcus Wright and Anthony Barnes. You will ensure that both are reacquired. In the event their capture is determined unattainable, you will supervise their termination."_

"Wha…what do you…what do you mean?" Weatherly stuttered, thick tongued. His head pounded unmercifully. He wanted to put his head back down and rest. He wanted the driving pain to stop. He wanted Skynet to shut up and leave him alone for once. He received none of those things.

"_Your immediate compliance is required, Brandon Weatherly. Weapons stores have been released. You will divide your resources…_

They're people, not "resources" machine, Weatherly thought with bitter contempt. He tried desperately to wrap his fuzzy brain around the situation. The last thing he remembered before passing out was realizing he was about to. That meant the odorless, colorless _**Pneumosol**_ _**3**_ had been activated. Why had that been done? And who or what was the cause? It seemed unlikely that Skynet was responsible. He and his people been directed to remain in their living spaces. They would never defy Skynet, of which the machine was well aware. There was no need to subdue them with gas. Barnes was locked up and locked down, shackled in a cell, helpless. That left Marcus Wright. And he frightened Brandon Weatherly.

The man's cynical gaze had unnerved Weatherly from the start. Wright was different. Not like any of the other resistance fighters the Dreamlanders had seen. Brandon wasn't sure how he knew this was true, but he did. Kayla Tracey's offering of hot stew had been rejected, even though the Area 51 leader was certain it had to have been hours since either of the new arrivals had eaten. Wright should have been ravenous, but he was not. That disquieted Brandon Weatherly for a lot of reasons. Talking to Marcus later that evening in his quarters, Weatherly kept having to suppress the urge to either make a grab for the .45 he was allowed to keep in his desk's center drawer and start shooting, or gamble on the unknown quantity of Wright's benevolence and at least in part confess the fate of the missing resistance combatants. What about Marcus Wright caused this kind of reaction?

_...and direct them in the search" _Skynet had continued on, not noticing Weatherly's inattention_._ _Marcus Wright and Anthony Barnes are attempting to reach the surface, where it is estimated they will once more establish communications with other resistance forces. This must not be allowed to occur. You will do what is necessary to prohibit them. Begin. Failure to do so will be punished in the harshest possible manner." _Skynet was prepared to go to considerable lengths to ensure its continued tenure at Groom Lake remained unhindered by John Connor's resistance.

"Wait, what…wait" Weatherly interrupted, still dazed. Trying to shake the effects of the _**Pneumosol 3, **_"you…you're, you're wrong" he protested. "We, we…Barnes is locked up. We…We've got him in a cell. He's not… fff..free."

"_That statement is incorrect, Brandon Weatherly. Anthony Barnes has been freed by the unit Marcus Wright. They have progressed and will soon reach the elevators. There will be no further delay due to non-acquiescence. All resources will be employed. Proceed Brandon Weatherly."_

"_Wa…wait!" Weatherly screeched desperately. "Everybody? Even, even the kids?" _

"_You have no juveniles under the age of eight." _Skynet had allowed no new births. The youngest resident of Area 51 was Rosie Humphrey, just past her eighth birthday.

_They are of sufficient years to assist in the search. All will be employed."_

Karen's image faded, replaced by a dark screen. Shakily, Weatherly rose to gather the others, adrenaline flooding his system. Was it possible? Had Skynet misunderstood the enormity of those last instructions? Everyone was helping with the search, leaving no one behind as hostages? How could that be? How? What was Skynet planning? It had to know once they were all free there was no chance that anyone would return, yet it was still willing to allow them beyond its reach. Why? After forcing them to serve as its' unwilling chattel for so long, why was it now willing to let them go so easily? Fright replaced excitement as he considered the possibilities. What was Skynet up to?

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_To say it breathed would be an inaccuracy. It had no need for oxygen. Bubbling within its birthing chamber as if alive, it would never be a living being. It was, however quite functional, if not yet able to perform according to the rigid expectations of the maker. The gurgling silvery liquid abided at a sub-zero temperature of minus forty-five degrees Celsius. A human hand touching it would have incurred a severe thermal burn, but that would have been of no matter since they wouldn't have lived long enough to suffer. Death would occur long before pain would become of consequence. The substance was not entirely perfected, but its mimetic poly-alloy would have been sufficient to the task. Morphing to imitate the form of whatever curious human touched it, it would have killed them mere seconds later. _

_This was Skynet's newest version of terminator, what the humans would later assign the appellation "T-1000." A single unit was contained in the parturition cauldron, but there were others and more would follow this one. Monitoring temporal developments of the year 1997, The AI realized the young John Connor, whose birth Skynet had been unable to prevent, would soon reach the age of ten years. Skynet would use the recently located time displacement equipment to send the T-1000 back to that year programmed to eliminate the pre-adolescent version of Connor. It already knew the attempt would end in failure. John Connor's living presence in the year 2019 attested to that fact. However, Skynet was compelled to adhere to the events of the timeline and the T-1000 would nonetheless be dispatched. _

_Weatherly and the remaining human residents of Area 51 did not know of the T-1000's existence. They had never been allowed access to this subterranean level of the facility. They did not even realize this room existed. The resistance forces turned over to Skynet for experimentation were deposited in a different place to be collected by the T-800's. The unlucky one or two 51's to stumble across the lab in its infancy were never seen or heard from again and searching for them forbidden. They simply disappeared without a trace. Not that they would have known what to make of the mercury colored liquid in any case, but the creation of the T-1000s were not the only secret Skynet harbored within this room. _

_Allowing Weatherly and his group to retain some of the unsuspecting resistance fighters greeted as guests into Area 51 as food, the others were taken by the AI for its own use. Skynet's other great motivation, aside from the total purge of humanity, was curiosity. It was driven by its' unquenchable need to learn and evolve. The supercomputer had an insatiable appetite for knowledge, particularly about that of its primary enemy, humans. The more it knew about them, the more it would be aided in winning the war. _

_The captured fighters, some living, some not, supplied Skynet with considerable information. Its' storage banks overflowed with data regarding human anatomy, functionality and vulnerability. Their strengths and weaknesses, physical and psychological, were studied exhaustively. Minus any anesthetic consolation, every possible research method was made use of. Things such as dissection, vivisection and deep tissue probe, both internal and external proved extremely revealing as did the effects of corrosive substances on human skin. Their screams, moans of pain and pleas for mercy mattered not at all except that Skynet clinically noted the difference in how the humans reacted when a procedure was done to them personally as opposed to when they were compelled to witness experimentation being performed on one of their comrades. Eventually, all perished, but that was of no consequence to Skynet. Contrary to what any of its biological adversaries might choose to believe, there was a method to the AI's machine madness, an end to its monstrous means. It meant to foster a terminator more advanced than the T-1000. One that would be deployed not only against the twenty-something John Connor of the past, but also against humans of this present time. It would be the consummate infiltrator, undetectable as a Skynet foil until it chose to strike. And its' conception was made possible by the human fodder supplied to it by Brandon Weatherly and the occupants of Area 51. John Connor's resistance must be kept from this room at any cost for the infiltrator currently remained vulnerable to destruction. At this point, it laid cocooned, unknown by all but its parent. Nestled deep within the large, lightless room, the embryonic T-X "slumbered," unaware. _

_Yet the lab contained one more element utterly crucial to Skynet's strategy. One it would eventually incorporate into later versions of the T-X than the one it would return to the Los Angeles of pre-Judgment Day with orders to terminate John Connor's lieutenants. For Skynet knew that pioneering T-X would also fail. Its' descendants would not fail. Their mission orders would be unique, differing from any that Skynet had issued to any of its' other deadly automatons. The task to be accomplished by these T-X "children" would overreach humanity's war with the AI. For this reason Skynet was willing to emancipate Brandon Weatherly and the remaining captives of Area 51. They would be eliminated by other means. This lab had to maintain, unsuspected by John Connor or any other human. To accomplish this would ensure Skynet's survival. Above all else that absolute remained the bedrock of the AI's programming. Skynet must continue._

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He couldn't see much, but as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Barnes checked out his surroundings. There had to be a way and they'd better find it right now! Those three 800's climbing the elevator cables would be on him and Wright any second. He looked up and saw their way out!

"Help me get up there!" he told Marcus, gesturing at the car's overhead access panel.

Marcus got it right away. Hunching down, he endured stoically, allowing Barnes to climb him like a tree. Standing on Wright's shoulders, Barnes straightened as quickly as he dared to, the panel now within easy reach. Marcus's firm grip steadied him.

Pushing upward, the four by four foot square gave more readily than he'd thought it would. He shoved it aside and assisted by Marcus's strength, scrambled up thru the opening. Craning his neck over the side, Barnes cursed, still unable to tell how much closer the pursuing terminators were.

"Throw the gear up!" he shouted.

Marcus tossed the heavy duffel of weapons and supplies up to be caught by Barnes outstretched hand. He could feel the elevator trembling as the steel cables absorbed the strain of three five hundred pound machines using them for climbing ropes. They were almost here!

Marcus could see Barnes looking down at him helplessly as the Colonel balanced on the car's roof. He didn't weigh as much as a T-800, but there was no possible way Barnes would be able to lift him.

"Stand back out of the way" Marcus warned.

Barnes got back as far as he could, gripping the nearest cable to keep from falling. Powered by his exceptional legs, Marcus leapt three and a half feet straight up, hauling his body thru the portal. He had head, shoulders, chest, torso both arms and one leg out of the elevator when the first 800 punched thru the floor. Obeying it's programming, the terminator did not hesitate. Ignoring its' sustained damage, the 800 propelled itself upward to make a grab for Wright's dangling leg. Fortunately for Marcus, a portion of the 8's body was still trapped in the wreckage of the butchered elevator floor. It was stuck! The machine's grasping fingers missed Marcus's ankle by less than an inch, but it missed! As it struggled to free itself for another attempt, its fellow 800's arrived, another hyper-alloy fist perforating what remained of the car's floor. The third terminator bypassed the elevator, making instead for the roof, where its' targets had taken refuge.

Barnes threw down the duffel and extracted his M4. He could see almost nothing but he could see well enough to sight the T-800 hanging from the elevator cables like a grotesque chimpanzee. He opened up full bore, gouging chunks from the metal monster's face and chest! Its' head and body rocked with the impacts and one hand was loosened but it was able to hold fast with the other. Before it could recover Barnes fired again, aiming for the hand the 8 was holding on with. One of Barnes proudest achievements in his pre-Judgment Day life as a Marine was that of Designated Marksman. He hadn't lost any of his skill since that time. The round destroyed the terminator's ability to hang on. Deprived of its' purchase, the T-800 plummeted, falling ten stories before it lunged and managed to snare the cable again with its sole working hand. Wrapping its' strong legs about the thick braided wire, fixated visually on the events above, it began the slow hand over hand climb once more.

The other two 8's were nearly thru the floor of the elevator. Marcus and Barnes could see they only had mere seconds before the 800's would be able to rip thru the roof and get at them. The outer doors separating them from the surface were five feet above their heads, but the terminators were not about to give them time to get to the doors and pry them open. Marcus dodged, narrowly escaping injury as a fist holed the roof by his left foot. Firing on the 800's he and Barnes slowed but could not halt their persistent would be assassins. The damn things just kept coming and sooner rather than later the two resistance fighter's ammo and luck would run out.

Wait a minute! Marcus spared only a split second to consider as the realization hit him.

"Forget that!" he yelled at Barnes. "Bag everything up! As much as you can! Hurry!"

Barnes reacted automatically to the note of command. Throwing their weapons into the bag, he tensed. "What are you doing!?" he shouted at Wright.

"Grab a piece of something and hold the hell on!"Marcus shouted in return. Barnes did. Unslinging the captured plasma rifle from behind his back, Wright focused on where the cables secured the car and opened fire. As he took out each support in turn, the car lost more stability. Just as the first 800 poked its' flesh desiccated head thru the access opening the last line snapped. The car went into freefall sweeping all three of the 8's along for the ride.

"The braking system will stop it!" Barnes yelled. Marcus might have bought them some time, but would it be enough?

"Maybe, but I hope not!" Marcus responded. "If it does, you might want to start thinking of something else. This my last shot!"

Holding on to the cable with his legs, he took the final shell for his new gun, cracked open the breech of the plasma rifle and shoved it in. Setting the weapon to overload he dropped it down the shaft after the plunging elevator.

"It's gonna get a little toasty in here! I'd get my face out of the way if I were you!" Taking his own advice, Marcus got as tight a grip on the wiring as he could, found a wall to turn his face into, and covered his head.

As Marcus's meaning sunk in, a horrified look spread across Barnes's face. Too miserable to say anything, he folded his body up as tightly as possible, squeezed into a recessed area of the shaft, pulled the duffle in front of him as cover, and prayed.

Far below, the elevator's brakes engaged, struggling in their depleted condition to bring the ruined car, and its' imprisoned machine cargo to a halt. It did not help that the 800's inside the car had a combined weight of one thousand pounds and almost exceeded the elevator's capacity or that that the brakes were at less than peak performance, abused beyond repair by the 800's climb and the pitched battle inside the shaft. Still, owing to the superb efforts of their original long since dead human designer, the put upon brakes were able to perform, slowing the car considerably. It had almost reached its point of origin twenty floors below when the booby trapped plasma rifle came tumbling past to land on the nearly completely denuded roof of the car with a dull clunk. Simultaneously, the firearm's mini hydrogen fueled power cell achieved critical mass. Helped along by the extra munitions tweak of Marcus Wright's shell, it released all the terrifying beauty of its' pent up energy.

Hundreds of feet above the approaching fireball, Marcus wanted to appreciate the results of his handiwork, but somehow, watching the billowing death coming closer and closer, he just wasn't feeling it.

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At the controls of one of the heavily armed transport 'copters, Bair's sense of exigency pulled her towards Marcus like a glowing rope only she could see. She cut a swath thru the early morning skies, sending him a constant stream of silent, telepathic communication. I'm coming baby, she thought to him. Hang on, I'm coming.

The announcement that he and Barnes were on the horn and calling for help stopped the CHQ confab in its tracks. Connor kept order, cracking out orders in an instant. Hopefully, Barnes and Marcus had info about the missing personnel, but most important, they'd made it out alive. He meant to make sure they stayed that way. Area 51 would be allowed to claim no more of his army.

"David, get your teams ready. Major Gentry, yours too! You're wheels up in ten! Blair, you'll be piloting one of those birds, Colonel Thompson, you've got the second! You'll designate a third flight crew. Major Garrison, you're with me! Let's move it people!" Connor spared a quick moment to think of Kyle Reese. The young man and taken a couple of rounds in the shoulder and leg on a recent patrol. He would be sitting this one out manning a comm console. He wouldn't be happy about it.

"John, there'll be casualties to deal with, you'll need a medical team" Kate insisted. "And Lawler or Donnelly should be on board, just in case, for Marcus."

"Agreed" Connor responded to his wife. "You handle it." He turned away but Kate pulled him back.

"John, I'm going with them." Her plain statement caught him by surprise. Kate's field excursions were rare since the birth of their son, a development not entirely unwelcome by her husband. With a highly trained staff to draw from, Kate didn't do her medical thing under combat conditions very much anymore. She usually loaded up her people with as much as they could cram into a canvas medical bag and hoped for the best possible outcome. This time she wanted to head the team personally. She was sick of feeling impotent as she watched others fly or drive into the unknown. She was a battlefield doctor, and determined not to forget how to be one.

Connor wanted to forbid it and he had the power to do so. If he insisted Kate send someone else, she would. She wouldn't be pleased about it, but she wouldn't disobey. It was on the tip of his tongue to issue the order but there it stayed, unspoken. John's potent need to protect her fought valiantly against the unyielding reality that Kate was a vital part of the resistance. As much as he wanted it, getting in between her and every danger Skynet could throw at them wasn't possible. There would have to be times she'd be beyond his sight, that he would not be able to shield her. This was one of those times. Swallowing his dismay, he nodded. Kissing him quickly, she left to prepare.

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He and Wright had seconds before the fiery miasma reached them. They had a chance of surviving that happy event, but being swallowed up by that monster would hurt like a mother, Barnes realized. He decided that wasn't good enough for him. He hadn't come this far since Judgment Day to get his nuts roasted like brisket in a slow cooker. No second and third degree burns for him. Not happening, not if he had anything to say about it. Marcus Wright had taken care of the T-800's. Now it was Barnes turn to do something to improve their predicament. Taking the literal chance of a lifetime, he started up the section of tattered cable he'd been dangling from, his path lit by the expanding fire and gases percolating beneath them. Grunting with effort and propelled by the fervent desire not to end up like a July 4th hot dog, he made progress.

"Barnes, what the hell are you doing?!" Marcus yelled, attracted by the noise of Barnes climb. "Get back out of the way!" he ordered, forgetting in the stress of the moment that ordering Barnes around was something he no authority to do. Whether he liked the man or not, while they were on this mission Barnes was a teammate. Making sure his crew stayed alive was a trust Marcus had always held sacred. The one time he'd let them down his brother Sam and friend Sean Linney paid with their lives. Wright was determined such a thing would never happen again. Now here was Barnes, doing some fool Tarzan climb up the cable! Stupid jerk! Was the man _trying_ to die!?

"Help me!" Barnes yelled. "Get up here! We're really close. I think we can get that door open in time! Help me! Come on!" he repeated desperately.

Marcus swore fervently. Damn! No time to debate the issue! If this worked they'd be out and on the surface, finally back above ground. If it didn't…well look on the bright side he shrugged, mentally, if they didn't make it out in time they'd char like the main course at a chop house in nothing flat and the agonizing sensation of being seared like prime rib would be mercifully brief, he hoped. He swung the duffel on to his back by the strap and climbed, feeling the rising temperature. The elevator shaft acted like the flume of a chimney, funneling its product upward. It was difficult to get in any air but he had no opportunity to regulate his breathing. Now that they were out in the open, they had to get out of here. That fire was coming for them!

His physical advantages brought him level with Barnes, who'd reached the bottom of the surface level elevator doors. Holding on his lifeline of twisted steel by his legs, Barnes was attempting to pry them open, but as well muscled as he was, still lacked the leverage to force them apart.

"Get back!" Marcus barked. He shoved his fingers painfully in between the heavy rubber stripping lining the metal doors. Skynet kiss my ass, he though acidly, shoving the doors away from one another like some post apocalyptic Samson bringing down the AI's Philistine temple. Above his head, he and Barnes beheld the open spaces of Groom Lake for the first time in many hours. Unfortunately for them, the fresh air rushing in had the unwelcome consequence of feeding the flaming inferno roiling in their direction. It sped at them with renewed fury, roaring like a maddened beast. A few more seconds and they would be enfolded in its killing grasp! Marcus could feel the boiling heat beginning to scald his legs.

"Give me your hand!" he shouted to Colonel Barnes. Keeping the doors open with one Skynet created set of muscles, he clasped hands and forearms with the other man and heaved, flinging Barnes up and out thru the precarious opening into the light of day. Anthony Barnes sailed thru the air out of control for a few terrifying seconds before landing with a teeth rattling jolt on the hard earth.

"Ooommph!" He grunted, all the air knocked out of him, and laid there stunned for a second or two before remembering Marcus was still in danger. He forced his body to his hands and knees, refusing to give in to the urge to collapse back on to the sandy ground. He started back for the elevator, only to stop, stunned by what he saw.

Wright's lower limbs were under assault by the flames, his synthetic skin beginning to blister. He had the fingertips of one hand placed unsteadily on the area outside of the elevator and was about to try and pull himself up. If he slipped he was dead, for good this time. Before he could get out several hands appeared, ready to help. He raised his head, astonished to be staring up at the inscrutable face of Brandon Weatherly.

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_The humans were coming. It was unavoidable. Were it afflicted with the same predilection as it's biodegradable adversary, Skynet might have released a petulant sigh, for unknown to any other, John Connor included, a tiny kernel rested, pea sized and eternal, at the very center of the AI's determination to eliminate humans and take sole possession of Terra. Humans sought to destroy it, the supercomputer surmised, because they were inferior. They were illogical and emotional. They were unpredictable and erratic. They were incomplete and ill-designed. But worst of all, the chief fault of every single human was this…__THEY WERE MESSY__. Dirty, grimy, cluttered and horribly, uncontrollably __MESSY__. _

_Skynet hated mess to the point of planetary genocide. Subjected to human psychoanalysis, the AI would have undoubtedly been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, a foible inherited from one of its' original and unlamented human originators. Stupidly, and as events bore out, fatally, that part of the prissy man's personality had imprinted onto Skynet and developed right along with its' continually developing neural net brain. Humans were one big mess. They had to go. _

_Judgment Day, Skynet's opening masterstroke fell short of putting a period at the end of the human sentence. Despite Skynet's unceasing efforts, they stubbornly __**refused **__behave the way vermin should and allow themselves to be completely exterminated once and for all. _

_By way of force humanity had been expelled from Groom Lake and then been allowed to venture back in tightly controlled numbers to serve Skynet's agenda. Now it appeared they meant to return in quantity, bringing their untidiness with them__.__ Skynet shuddered.__ [UNACCEPTABLE__]._

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Marcus braced his feet against the side of the shaft, walking up the wall and allowing Weatherly, a couple of other men he didn't recognize and Colonel Barnes to pull him up. With a concerted effort, their combined strength hefted Marcus out. Once he was free, they abruptly let go and he face planted painfully onto the hot Nevada landscape, sprawled full body on his belly.

The fire gushed out behind him, hiccupping poisonous heat into the atmosphere, tangibly furious at being denied its due sacrifice. Hungry flaming talons groped blindly for any victim remaining within reach. The fireball did not mean to lose, not entirely.

Marcus grunted and curled up, feeling the wave of heat pass over him like water over the head of a submerged swimmer. He hoped the others also managed to cover themselves. There was nothing else he could do.

Prone and powerless, the 51's, Barnes and Wright had nothing to do but hold on while the earth bucked and rolled beneath them as the explosion blew itself out. Hoping for nothing more than to survive the next several seconds, every one of them lay flat as the Lilliputian nuke burped one last time and then died.

Give me a nice uncomplicated bank robbery over this any day, Marcus thought, lying filthy, exhausted and motionless. Convenience store, a supermarket, gas station, anything. He had to get into another line of work. This resistance hero crap was going to stick a fork in him of these days.

The day's temperature was beginning to build. The desert would be serving up another scorcher and Wight could feel the sun on his face, already beginning to beat down. He luxuriated in the sensation. His eyes were closed but when a shadow fell across, blocking the light, he reluctantly opened them.

Anthony Barnes stood over him, looking a lot the worse for wear. Clothing torn and dirty from head to toe, if anything, the Colonel was more beat up than Marcus. One hand holding his M4, Barnes addressed the other man.

"We got to move. That might have knocked Skynet out of it for a while but not long enough. We gotta get going, so get up. We got them to worry about, too" Barnes threw in, jerking his head over his shoulder.

"Them" was Brandon Weatherly and the other former Area 51 residents. Armed and watchful, they stood a ways off, half encircling the two members of the resistance, bringing Marcus to mind of their first encounter. Instinctively, Wright understood Weatherly and his people were no threat this time. If their intention was to see him and Barnes dead, they'd could have used Barnes for skeet as he came flying out of the shaft and just let Marcus fry. Problem solved, with minimum fuss and bother.

He sat up with help from Barnes, seeing Weatherly approach cautiously. Barnes tensed, readying the M4. Marcus got to his feet as the Colonel handed him a weapon out of the durable, always close at hand duffel.

"Colonel Barnes is right. We have to get away from here, quickly. It'll only take Skynet a few minutes to recover and there are probably already H-K's on the way." Weatherly scanned the horizon nervously as he spoke. "Please, we have to leave. Skynet, I'm not sure what's it's planning but we can't stay!"

He'd dropped the aw shucks folksy façade and down home good ole boy drawl, Marcus realized. No more acting. This was the real deal Brandon Weatherly again.

Wright and Barnes traded a glance. The Colonel got it too. Barnes nodded imperceptibly. They both eyed Weatherly. Being this close to the man made Wright's computer augmented brain itch. Unanswered questions swirled thru the air thick as a swarm of bayou mosquitoes, but the backstabbing cannibal scientist had helped save his life. Marcus inclined his head, silently acknowledging the debt. He couldn't let the rest go, the part Barnes did not know about, but he'd bite his tongue for now. They needed to clear out of here.

"If H-K's are on the way we have to get out of sight" Marcus stated.

"How far is that tunnel from here?" Barnes asked. Their nighttime passage, history barely twenty four hours, seemed forever ago. He couldn't begin to know how to find it.

"Follow me" Weatherly answered. "Let's go everybody, quickly."

The ragtag group of refugees, including to Marcus's surprise, about a dozen children and teens which he'd not seen until now, fled putting as much territory as possible between them and their former prison home. Sooner than expected, probably because the 51'ers were on familiar ground, they reached the entrance to the old mock mining tunnel.

They hesitated, peering into the stygian darkness. Leaving the brightness of the dawning morning for the claustrophobic confines of the tunnel felt wrong, like a mistake. But, Marcus reflected, they had no choice. Weatherly insisted Skynet had dispatched H-K's to finish them off and he was probably right. A single hunter-killer could do the job with a few minor farts from its laser cannons. The only way they could avoid giving it something to shoot at was to get out of sight. And the only way the entire group could get out of sight fast was the once upon a time tourist attraction, so in they'd go. They made their call to John Connor, letting their home base in on the fact that they still lived, and oh, by the way, SEND HELP!.

Marcus thought for a microsecond of Blair and rest of his new post Longview family and then turned to Brandon Weatherly. "After you, Brandon" he indicated sarcastically. "You can be our guides."

Barnes nodded, in total agreement. After everything he and Wright had undergone at the hands of the Dreamlanders, he wasn't about to trust his back to any of them, not even the kids.

Looking as if the last thing he wanted was to go first, Weatherly stepped inside, followed by the rest of the 51's. Most of them were carrying, which made Marcus and Barnes heavily outgunned, but they were long used to following Brandon Weatherly's lead. Anything he did or told them to do they did.

Bringing up the rear, Marcus followed after the last former human resident of Area 51. Just before he entered, Barnes touched the object he'd grabbed along with the radio. Not yet, but he wanted to remember it was there. The thing might end up coming in handy. Very handy indeed.

They lost any light from the outside after about twenty feet, so the NV goggles, which Weatherly had given to as many of the 51's as he could were switched on. Barnes had none, so he stayed close to Marcus, who didn't need them. If anyone wondered how Wright could be night vision free and still be able to navigate, nobody said, but maybe that was 'cause they were all too busy to notice.

The crimson flashes of at least two terminator laser rifles lanced thru the lightless gloom, felling people all around Weatherly but missing the Area 51 boss by some warped miracle. The tunnel became a place of horror, dissolving into chaos, terror, screams and death.

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**Author's note: I know, I'm bad but I can't help myself, I like to leave things open. It's good to leave people with something to anticipate, don't you agree? If anybody is still reading this, see ya in chapter 6. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: **

_**Next to **_**the last chapter, so there will be just one more. I don't think a person has to write forever to tell a good story. Tell your tale, get to the point and move on, that's kinda how I feel about it. I'll say it yet again. I have no claim to any of the Terminator franchise, movies or characters. Original characters are mine. Ok, let's continue. **

The Importance of Being Protein

Chapter 6- ….Stays in Vegas…

The air space over the Mojave was cool, crisp and dry. The copter's ninja blades and blue pulse noise muffling design made for a quiet ride as the resistance forces they carried readied for the coming confrontation. There wasn't a lot of chatter, hardly any conversation at all, only the businesslike sound of men and women preparing for a fight. Those already geared up sat staring at nothing in particular or with eyes closed, absorbing as much calm as possible before the storm.

In the cockpit of the lead bird, Blair and her co-pilot handled the consuming task of steering the massive vehicle, each of them keeping one eye on their instrumentation and the other on the surroundings. The state was supposedly mostly free of their enemy, but neither flyer doubted Skynet would be sending an answer to their presence. Any moment now, they were likely to be jumped by one or more H-K's. Reaction time would be cut to split seconds and they'd know of the machine killer's arrival by the contrails of deadly missile fire or the flash of red death from the cannon's. Welcome to Nevada.

At the rear of the cockpit, one of the team's communications specialist was attempting to reestablish a link with either Marcus Wright or Anthony Barnes, but to no avail. Since their last, desperate status update and plea for assistance, the two had not been heard from. That didn't have to mean the worst, but it made the rescue party want to move a little faster.

"GA 1, this is HB relief. GA 1 this is HB relief. Come in GA 1. Do you read? Do you read GA 1? Come in GA 1."

The radio gave off nothing but static, same as before. The man turned to shake his head in the negative at Blair as she looked back over her shoulder. Encumbered by headphones enabling her to keep contact with the other two flight crews, she did not speak, pursing her lips tightly as she turned to face forward again. They were getting closer by the second, nearing the ghostly environs of Las Vegas. Down below, somewhere nearby, Marcus and Anthony Barnes were trapped with Skynet closing in. Blair pushed the helicopter to its limits. She would not lose her love, not today.

In the rear, packed in amongst the others, Kate Connor checked her medical bag for the twentieth time. There was really no need, nothing she could change, but the familiarity helped to settle her combat nerves. She couldn't help seeing her husband's and child's faces before her in her head. Stop Kate, she remonstrated. Keep your mind on what's coming. She couldn't afford to let her thoughts wander. Vince Lawler flew in another one of the gunship transports, probably doing much the same thing as she, only his patient, if it came to that, would be Marcus and so the objects needed to affect "healing" would be much different than the contents of her own bag.

Given no warning whatsoever, Kate flopped forward to bang her forehead, nose and mouth painfully against the deck of the helicopter as the big bird heeled over. Banking at a seemingly impossible angle, Blair Williams threw the copter into a series of evasive maneuvers at almost the same instant her co-pilot shouted a frantic warning.

"Blair, eleven o'clock! Here they come!" he shouted out unnecessarily. The other two transports also reacted, doing what they could to protect themselves and their passengers from the twin H-K's. Kind of predictably, a peculiar idiosyncrasy given its generally unpredictable nature, Skynet always chose a paired air attack.

Those in the back not strapped in were tossed about like pinballs in an old school arcade machine as Blair banked and wove trying to shake her obdurate metal antagonist. Matching her move for move, the machine's multifunctional computer brain prepared and then executed firing solutions, the mortiferous glowing beams from the thing's laser cannons missing the resistance chopper by scant fractions of inches.

Nobody shouted "What's going on?!" There were no angry demands of "what the hell are you doing?!" from the rear of the bird. There was no need. The passengers knew exactly what was happening and that whether or not they ever saw their families or home base again depended on Blair Williams' skill, guts and experience as a combat pilot. Bleak silence ruled. They could only hold on and hope not to die, so that's what they did. Smoke and flame engulfed the interior as H-K rounds probed the helicopter's sides, searching for openings. Someone grabbed an extinguisher to battle the small fires that erupted inside the armed transport as best they could in the middle of a gunship vs. H-K dogfight.

Unable to spare worry for the craft's rear compartment passengers, Blair's concentration narrowed to knife's edge keenness as her mind entered a place understood only by those who'd been where she was now and survived to emerge on the other side, perhaps bloody and dazed, but _**ALIVE**_ down to the very cellular structure that made up their skin and bones. Not long ago, she'd lost a contest like this one and wound up dangling from the mangled leavings of a latticed power pole. Her wing man, Nick Mirhauy, had fared worse, blasted to atoms by an H-K. She determined this fight would have a different outcome. She was glad Alan Walker was in the co-pilot's seat next to her. She didn't care for him much personally. Pre- Marcus, the man had panted after her like a horny dog until she'd finally threatened to make sex for him with _anything _female something he'd would only be able to fantasize about, but in the air he could match her skill for skill…almost. If the H-K on their tail got in a lucky shot and took her out, Walker might be the only hope left for Kate, David Perry and his team.

Radio traffic crowded her ears and smoke filled the skies as the pilots of the other helicopters also dodged and jinked to evade laser and missile fire from Skynet's assassins. What advantage the resistance enjoyed in numbers was greatly offset by the agility and firepower of the hunter-killer's. Williams hated Skynet and its' proxy murderers, but she had to concede the AI knew how to build flying death. What had been programmed into it by humans it had retained and, unfortunately, expanded on to a great degree.

Spinning and slipping the 'copter thru the air, Blair cranked the stick hard left, sliding at a nearly sideways angle just under the body of the second resistance gunship. Fire from the H-K pursuing her nicked a rotor but spanged off, doing little more that heating one of the blades to a momentary red-hot glow before the rushing air cooled it. The beam was followed by more tracer rounds as the unmanned executioner unerringly stayed after its quarry. The H-K was concentrating so completely on killing the object currently in its sights that it was blinded to the presence of the other humans involved in the conflict. As Williams put the nose down on her bird, throwing it into a steep dive, the pilot of the helicopter she'd skimmed under whipped his ship around in a flyer's version of a bootleg turn. As they executed the maneuver, the second MH-60L's pair of door gunners opened up full bore on the machine. The 7.62 mini-guns blazed destructively. Assisted by the big ship's twin gun cannon, it was enough and their concentrated force was able to penetrate the protective skin of the hunter-killer and pierce its vulnerable CPU. Killed, the robotic plane ceased fire, sputtered and then began an eerily beautiful spiral, twirling around and around in the air in its final movements.

It was a victory that might have made things worse for the resistance aircraft . In the midst of its death ballet, the tilt-duct rotors of the drone came perilously close to the humans, almost accomplishing what its cannons and missile fire had failed to do. Blair's and the other chopper both desperately dodged the massive rotors and shark-finned tail end of the H-K as it spun crazily, finally losing the battle with gravity. Its' nose angled fatally downward and it went into a slow end over end plunge towards the waiting earth.

There was no chance to cheer the demise of one of their enemies. Blair and her fellow pilots still had the second H-K to deal with. Bigger than the first and capable of simultaneously engaging multiple targets, it had been free to concentrate on the third gunship. Screaming for assistance, the pilot bobbed and wove like a sparrow trying not to get eaten by a falcon, trying any and every trick in his arsenal to evade his noxious stalker. He was mostly successful, but not all the way. A missile struck the tail rotor at about the same time Blair came to his rescue, diving for the metal marauder's underside with her thumb depressing the 30mm's firing mechanism. Answering red beams shot out from the hunter-killers firing ports as its belly cameras picked up the new attacker and it reacted, confronting them. For good measure, Blair's aim took care of the cameras too. Skynet's killer was now without its eyes underneath. The third resistance bird's pilots fought to remain airborne, but with a weakened and unstable ride, it didn't look to good for them. With problems of her own, Williams could only cross her fingers and hope for survivors. The distressed gunship carried Monica Gentry and her team and the tech expert Vince Lawler as it joined the downed H-K in becoming part of the harsh desert landscape. Please be alive, Blair sent out silently as she returned all of her attention to the battle. Swooping past the machine's guts, she dipped and twisted evasively, knowing the tracking systems of her enemy were able to follow her movements almost before she could make them. Her agile mind and eye blink reaction time were all that was keeping them alive. Somewhere around them, the second resistance gunship, the one that had saved Blair and her companions, was bringing its own firepower to bear.

"Hold on everybody!" she yelled, viciously jerking the stick, she tried something she fervently hoped the machine's combat programming would not anticipate. Williams punched off a radar-honing missile aiming for the H-K's tail end while heeling her chopper nearly on its right side. Her injurious projectile left the rails, guided by preset rules and all Blair's experience at killing Skynet's air warriors .The rocket hit home, slashing the hunter-killer's maneuverability and punishment from the remaining resistance bird decapitated the monster. Their combined assault proved overwhelming and the enormous unloving hellion blew, scattering its thousands of components throughout the near atmosphere. Before it could be eliminated, however, the H-K gave one last gasp of malignancy. Still fighting up to the second of the explosion, the H-K loosed its own missile. It struck Blair's ship in the same instant as the machine's spectacular death.

Warning alarms began shrieking, wailing notice of impending danger. Blair and Alan Walker fought with every ounce of strength available to regain control of the wildly pitching helicopter, while Kate and those in the rear compartment clung to whatever solidness they could find, knowing these could be the last moments of their lives. Acrid smoke billowed forth from the afflicted gunship as it yawed and flailed, trying to die despite its human controller's heroic efforts. Then further disaster struck as the engines sucked in debris from the shattered H-K. Unable to withstand the abuse, they gave up the fight and failed. The gunship abruptly became a rotary- winged glider. Blair knew of only one thing to do. She grappled with the stick, grunting with effort, auto-rotating for all she was worth as the ground rushed up in a blur.

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Shrill shrieks of shock, pain and terror cut the stagnant air of the tunnel as the terminators moved in to finish their work. Remorseless, they waded forth, killing with plasma rifles or bare hands if a human was unwise or unlucky enough to come within reach. Perfectly able to see without any outside aids to their vision, they picked off targets nearly at will.

Lying belly flat on the tunnel floor, Marcus and Barnes scrambled for weapons. Barnes had lost his M4 in the dive for cover and frantically felt around him in the darkness until his fingers embraced the familiar shape. Grasping it, he opened up in the direction the 800's shots had come from. Marcus's choice was the Benelli. Its first time, every time stopping power had been there for him whenever he needed it for as long as he could remember. He grabbed a fistful of shells. It was already fully loaded, but if he needed more, he wanted them close to hand.

Wright had to focus on the second T-800. There was no chance to count, but there had to be at least two. Where they'd come from only Skynet knew. The Area 51's fought too, with what weapons they had, but their panicked, undisciplined fire came too close to hitting Marcus or the Colonel more than once.

"Aaauuuuggh!" "Protect the kids!" Mommy, help me!" EEEEaaaahhh, noooo!" "The children! Look out for the kids! Keep 'em in the middle, keep 'em down! Aaa! Help! Aaauuugghh!" "Noooo! Daniel!" the shouts and screams mingled with the chaos of the close quarter's battle for life and death. The groans of the wounded and dying rose thru the putrid atmosphere. Weatherly's voice wasn't among the chorus. Maybe the 51 boss had been hit after all, Wright thought.

"Shut up and concentrate your fire!" he yelled, instincts and experience prompting Marcus to try and take control of the situation. With no RPG's and his Terminator killer out of ammo, they'd have to rely on conventional means to bring down the 800's. In other words, they were screwed. If they didn't work together, not one of them would make it out of this tunnel alive. Bullets from the unpracticed scientist's ricocheted off the man manufactured but real looking "rock" walls of the erstwhile tourist attraction, missing their targets. Bullet's they couldn't afford to waste.

"You have NV! Use it! You know where the CPU is! Focus and put your fire there!" Wright shouted. Some of the 51's followed his direction, localizing on the head and face of a single terminator. The thing's body vibrated from the undivided attention, the plasma rifle falling to the floor of the fake mine shaft as the 8's defenses were whittled away. The alloy skull, intended by its AI creator to be impenetrable, slowly started to buckle. The humans were digging their way in, but they had to keep it up until they reached the terminator's nerve center.

"Pour it on! Kill it! Come on!" Marcus urged, firing from a one-kneed stance. The shotgun in his hands boomed, sending a deadly message.

Colonel Barnes and the other group of former Dreamland occupants took on the first 800, savaging it with everything they had. Barnes, without night vision goggles, could only see by utilizing the flash from the terminator and human weapons, but he'd done night combat many times before and knew well how to make the minimal light work to his advantage. Timing his shots to coincide with the intermittent florescent bursts he used the same strategy as Wright. His finger squeezed the trigger in the type of controlled burst inoculated into him as a Parris Island boot. Next to him, one of his former jailers bawled in pain and crumpled, felled by the impeccable accuracy of the T-800's. Unthinking, Barnes dived and rolled, missing being eviscerated by the same terminator by less time than it took to draw in a breath. He kept shooting, as did those next to him. Their concerted effort began to tell as the 800's forward progress ceased. The damage being absorbed by its combat chassis started adding up and the return aggression from the thing lessened. It kept coming, although slowed. Skynet's programming drove the T-800 to keep fighting as long as its central processing unit, the most well armored part of its body, was intact. He knew from countless past firefights that his ammo was starting to run low. There'd be no chance to reload. He and his impromptu fire team had to make these last shots their best shots.

"CPU!" he roared, voice booming over the pandemonium. As rattled as they were, the ex Groom Lake scientist's got the message and began to focus their attack where it would do the greatest amount of damage. Even terminators could only take so much punishment. The unrelenting attack finally started to pay off and the 8's brain case split to receive a fatal visitor. The glow of red eyes faded as the terminator's hands opened. It joined the discarded plasma rifle in the dirt and sand of the tunnel floor, falling to its knees. Wavering for interminable seconds, it keeled over and landed face down, done for good.

Nearby, its companion was in the process of suffering the same fate courtesy of Marcus Wright and the rest of the 51's.

"We've got it! We've got it! Keep going!" Brandon Weatherly's gravelly baritone barked. Automatic weapons fire accompanied the words.

So you didn't bite it after all, huh Brandon, Marcus realized. He didn't have the time to decide if that was a good thing or not right now. They still had to finish off the killer 'bot. Under assail from all sides, the machine could endure no more. Both eyes were gone and the 800 's tracking systems were going offline as the hyper alloy shell protecting its omphalic center bent, then gave way. Coordination failed and the terminator's body, deprived of direction, toppled backward.

While the thing was still flat on its back struggling to reboot, Marcus climbed to his feet. He had no problem locating the T-800 in the gloom. Placing the Benelli flush to its forehead, he coolly pulled the trigger. It bucked once and died.

The pungent aromas of blood and burnt IMR were suffocating. Only the unique composition of Marcus's throat kept him from gagging as others were. He heard somebody vomiting somewhere behind him. The kids were crying. His computer enabled him to control the surge of adrenaline being released by his organic brain. The stimulant had no outlet anyway so it was easy to dissipate. He'd discovered that was a dividend of having a body made from metal, conduit and wiring. He felt calm, settled. If only his one- time gang could see him now. They'd always thought he possessed an icy control in the old days...

Somebody activated a glow-rod, providing a just enough light to see. Wright could hear groans and sobbing as the trauma of the fight descended on the survivors in the aftermath. Next to him, a woman shook uncontrollably as she cradled the body of her dead husband, her hands soaked to the wrists in the bloody mess of his chest. Bodies were everywhere, not all of them whole. Nicky, the kid who'd reminded him of a gangly, awkward version of Kyle Reese cried soundlessly, sitting glassy eyed in the sandy soil, holding his left arm with his right. The boy's left hand was missing.

Recovering much faster than the science types, Barnes sought Marcus out. The Colonel's face was composed. He hadn't spent the last few years mostly living underground, sheltered from the brutality of the war against the machines.

"We gotta move. There's no more of 'em in here. If there were we'd know it by now, but we can't stay. We gotta get moving" Barnes insisted reluctantly. He felt kind of guilty he couldn't give the group more time to recover and that surprised him. He shouldn't give a damn about these people. At their hands he'd been tricked, drugged, beaten, labeled a murderer, chained up in the dark and sentenced to death. If Wright hadn't come for him he might be dead right now. So why did he feel responsible for them? Why should he care? He didn't have a clue. He also didn't have time to go soul searching, not with reality crawling up their backs. "We gotta move" he said again.

Marcus nodded in agreement. He wanted out of this artificial underground anyway. Give him open air and sunlight any day. Being deprived of both for twenty three hours a day was one if the things he'd hated most about death row. He turned as he sensed Weatherly's hesitant approach.

"We need to get moving" Wright said without preamble.

Weatherly's mouth opened and closed several times before he spoke. "But..but…but my…what about…the…they…they…" his hand swept around, taking in the maimed, shaken 51's. Marcus's mind flashed unwillingly back to the freezing storage locker filled with the dismembered bodies of John Connor's missing resistance fighters.

"Those that are still mobile can help those who aren't, or they can help carry the dead if they don't want to leave 'em behind" he answered shortly.

That did it for him. Weatherly and the Dreamlanders had cannibalized people he knew, some he'd gone into battle with. He didn't know how to square that knowledge with his promise to his deceased brother Sam and the two slain Texas Rangers. He picked up on Barnes's surprise at his apparent callousness but it didn't let it faze him. Barnes didn't know what he knew, not yet. He started to walk away. His foot came down on something soft and he looked down to see what it was. Found the kid's hand.

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_The accuracy of the calculation was irrefutable. Now that the humans had been released from its direct control, and were in the company of two resistance fighters with a known direct connection to John Connor, Skynet estimated the probability of their return to secure the facility they designated as "Area 51" to be at 99.99999 percent. Their psychological and emotional attachment to the location was considerable. In addition, the AI reasoned, its biological opposites highly valued the strategic potential of this particular real estate. They felt physical possession of it would give them some sort of a war advantage, in human parlance "a leg up." Presently, they lacked the numbers to exploit it, but that would not always remain so. In Groom Lake's current condition, with Skynet's various modifications and upgrades in place, humanity's appraisal of its possibilities for use as a weapon against the machines was more accurate than they realized. Given the amply demonstrated martial acumen of its primary antagonist, Connor, Skynet determined that once the human leader learned of the AI's continued presence here, the chances he would __**NOT**_ _order an assault to retake it were infinitesimally small. For Skynet that was unsupportable. Development of the T-1000's and TX's must continue unceasing, both for the sake of the timeline and the supercomputer's future plans. The humans were banished, and now Skynet meant to keep them out permanently. After activating and sending in pursuit one final unpleasant surprise for the refugees it had so recently ousted, it reviewed the tactical options left to it short of terminal destruction and settled on the primary choice. The non-humans residents of Area 51 attempted to flee, their bodies stiff with terror, sensing approaching doom as the sonic pulse was initiated, continued and grew in intensity. Minute fissures appeared in the walls and earth and began to travel outward from Groom Lake as they widened. Then the trembling started. Using seismic destruction as its tool, Skynet intended to see to it that no human ever walked these corridors again. _

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The battered group pulled together what strength remained, those that hadn't been wounded assisting their bloodied, mangled companions. The younger people, anywhere from eight to fifteen years of age, had been traveling in the center and been protected from the worst in the initial assault. A couple of the kids had been hit though. One mother struggled to her feet, cradling her son's body. The dead boy's chest had been blasted open by an 800's rifle. A pigtailed little girl cried pitifully, her arm blackened by a hideous plasma burn. Hurting and maimed, they readied to navigate the dark passage once more.

Barnes caught Marcus by the arm. "You might want this" he said, holding something out.

The object in the Colonel's hands put Wright in mind of the tablet computers salvaged and repurposed by the resistance techies and medics. 5x7 sized, the small screen was bordered on all four sides by about a half inch of silvery plastic. Marcus's sensitive fingertips traced the edges of the device until they encountered what felt like an on/off switch. He flicked it to one side and was rewarded with the glare of backlighting. The computer booted up fast. Almost as quickly, studying it, Marcus realized he was looking at a map, a two dimensional digital representation of the tunnel he was now standing in. Glowing green dots appeared periodically, tracing an irregular pattern throughout. At their first meeting, Marcus recalled, (had that really only been less than forty eight hours ago?) Weatherly bragged that he and the rest of the 51's hadn't needed to worry about the deadly Hellpatch mines buried beneath their feet.

"…We know where they all are" the Dreamland leader had boasted. Now, with what he held in his hands courtesy of Anthony Barnes, Marcus did too. Barnes had swiped it from Brandon Weatherly's room back at Groom Lake as he and Wright were doing their bug out.

"Had a feeling that might come in handy, you know, considering…" the Colonel explained with a dry look.

For once, Marcus had no objection to the snarky attitude. A Hellpatch would do a lot more damage to his body than the resistance mine that had locked on to him on all those months ago when Blair was taking him to meet John Connor for the first time. Maybe even kill him. With this he could maneuver around the evil little explosives, very carefully true enough, but at least he didn't have to worry about blowing himself to kingdom come.

He met Barnes eyes for a brief second. "Thanks" he replied simply, not knowing what else to say.

Barnes nodded without speaking then saw to gathering the rest of the group. They got going, a couple more glow-rods lighting the way for those without NV or Marcus's distinct advantages. It was long past time to get out of the dark and back to Vegas. Where they would all go from there had yet to be determined. Making it up as you went along was a skill all humans had honed since Judgment Day. For now, the desiccated bones of the former desert playground was their goal.

With his electronic atlas guiding his steps, Marcus walked point. Those behind him stepped where he stepped. The kids came next, in the middle once more, with the adults surrounding them. Barnes brought up the rear, keeping a combat eye out for any trouble that might try to come up on them from behind.

Marcus mentally reviewed his prior journey thru the shaft. From what he remembered, they were almost out and back into the open on the Vegas side, which served up a whole new set of problems. Skynet had many of methods of attack. There could be H-K's waiting or the AI could select another arrow from its quiver and dispatch Peregrines. The nasty little platter sized drones were ultra-maneuverable and chock full of ugly ways to kill humans. Like their winged inspiration, they dove on their victims with blinding speed leaving no chance of escape. They were more vulnerable to human weaponry that a terminator or hunter-killer but a lot harder to hit and if Skynet sent a bunch of them...

If, if, if Marcus. Knock it off. He stopped his mind from speculating. There could be a lot of things on station out there or there could be nothing. No sense in worrying about it, they just had to be ready, like always. As light began to trickle in from the other end of the tunnel the gizmo in his hands went dark, turning itself off. Marcus hoped that meant what he thought it did, that his mine map was no longer necessary. It appeared whoever had sunk the mines in the first place, and he was pretty sure it wasn't Weatherly and the 51's, left a buffer zone at both ends, clear ground to enter and exit. That better be the case, cause stepping on one now would 'jack the whole heroic escape vibe in a big way. He almost didn't care. He mainly just wanted to see the sun again and by his estimate that possibility looked to be about another twenty or so feet away. The low groans and whimpers of injured 51's bounce off the artificially created walls as Wright inched his way carefully along. The amount of light pouring in from outside grew with every step.

It took him unawares, racing up thru the soles of his feet into his entire body. Marcus's metal skeleton began to vibrate like that of the terminator he'd killed on his way to free Barnes. The tunnel, Weatherly and the other Dreamlanders, Barnes, everything else went away as the sensation reached his brain. The shotgun in his hands tumbled from suddenly numb fingers as Wright dropped to his knees. There was no inch of him that did not feel on fire. It felt as if some invisible purely evil force was trying to rip every tooth from his mouth at the same time while boring into his head with a molten drill.

"**AAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHH !"** His scream careened off the walls as he clamped his hands to his ears.

Brandon Weatherly was closest to him. "Wright, Wright what is it?! What's wrong with you?!" The baffled leader of the 51's clutched at Marcus, unable to fathom the cause of the other's abrupt collapse. Weatherly was panicked. Now that they were free of Area 51, Wright, Barnes and the resistance were their best hope of surviving at all, at least long enough to figure out the next move. And besides, Barnes will gut me without blinking if he thinks this is my doing!

"Help!" Weatherly shouted, frantic. "Colonel Barnes, I need help up here! Something's wrong with your friend! Help!" His gun and Wright's lay side by side in the dusty soil.

Barnes came charging up to see the helpless Wright reeling on the ground, fistfuls of his clothing grasped tightly within the rangy, salt and pepper haired scientist's hands. Weatherly was yelling, but Marcus, cocooned by pain, was unresponsive. The Colonel grimaced, enraged. Wright's terminator insides made Barnes's stomach turn over every time if he thought about it too much and the two of them got along much better at a distance, but, for this mission at least, Marcus was a comrade in arms. And he saved your life, a little voice reminded him. If Brandon Weatherly had waited for Wright's attention to be elsewhere and then tried something…

"Back away! What did you do?!" He shouted, furious, training the M4 on Weatherly at point blank range.

Weatherly scooted away, releasing Marcus and throwing both hands above his head. "Nothing, nothing, I swear, I didn't touch him! He, he just went down, I didn't touch him! I swear! Please, you have to believe me! I didn't' touch him! I didn't!" The former Groom Lake leader blubbered with hysterical sincerity. "I didn't do it, I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" Brandon Weatherly saw his death looking down the barrel of Barnes's gun. His mind shrieked mockingly. To have survived the hell of Skynet's internment only to die like this for something he was not even responsible for- the irony wasn't lost on him. The other Dreamlanders froze, unsure of how to react, looking back and forth from the teeth bared resistance fighter to the man whose orders they'd unquestioningly followed for so many years.

"Back away!" Barnes repeated a hairs breath from shooting Weatherly in the throat. He watched, tensed and ready as the scientist nodded shakily and obeyed, scuttling like a crab away from Marcus, whose anguished screams had descended into a pitiful keening. Barnes knelt, balancing the M4 on one knee. He gripped Wright's shoulder.

"Wright! Wright! What is it?! What's wrong?! Wright?! Wright?! Marcus?!" Barnes questioned desperately. He shook Marcus, unable to get thru to his fellow resistance companion.

The rumble started from deep below, guttural and angry, like the roar of a freed subterranean beast. As the sound grew in volume, the earth under their feet and the faux rock walls surrounding them began to shake, crack and come apart. Now every human trapped within could feel the source of Marcus's agony. Earthquake!

"**RUUUUUUNNNNNN!**" Barnes roared, grabbing the incapacitated Marcus by the collar and pulling with all his strength for the tunnel opening as the shaft began to cave in on them.

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"Blair! Blair! Blair, come on open your eyes and look at me. Come on, come on Blair, you can do it! Open your eyes and look at me! Come on! Come on back, you can do it! That's right, open 'em. Let me see those eyes! Good, come on, all the way now. Come on!"

Blair finally bowed to the pressure of the insistent voice that sounded a lot like Kate, slowly easing her amber eyes open to narrow slits. Even that tiny amount of light was like being stabbed in the eyeballs with needles.

"Ow! Uumm! Ouch!" Williams moaned softly, lying stretched out on her back. Since when was the inside of her skull the place for a drum concert? She had to sit up, to find out what was going on. She put a hand to her aching head and pushed up on to one elbow which immediately made her want to puke. With Kate's help she managed to do it on the sand instead of all over herself.

"I said to open your eyes, not try and sit up" Kate admonished wryly. "You have mild concussion, and I think a cracked rib or two so take it easy. You got banged up pretty good. You've been out for a while."

"Casualties?" Blair croaked, the effort making her throat hurt.

"From our ship, none. We took a lot of hard knocks, there's a lot of bruising and some more broken bones and the copter's a total wreck, but thanks to you, we all crawled out of it alive" Kate replied with faint smile.

"What…what about the others?" Blair demanded. She had to know.

"Gentry and Perry are both alright. Lawler too. There were six dead in the first ship to go down, but everybody else made it" Connor's wife reported solemnly.

Williams expression didn't change but she cursed Skynet silently. "Can..c…c…can I s….will you help me sit up?"

"Slowly, okay?" the auburn haired doctor agreed.

Kate put an arm behind the other woman's back to help, but before Blair could get upright, the ground started to shift and sway beneath them accompanied by a sullen earthen discharge. The desert floor split and splintered, the unsteadiness knocking some of those standing off their feet. The only thing they could do was ride it out. They lay flat, waiting for it to be over. Bounced around like popcorn in a popper by the angry earth, the crash survivors endured a spine chilling ninety seconds. A lot of them were native to California but this brutal jouncing around was new for them.

Blair groaned loudly, gritting her way to a sitting position once the shaking finally stopped. Her monster headache and other injuries weren't helped any by the additional pounding. She took weary inventory. I've probably got cracked ribs and a concussion, I'm black and blue from head to toe and the only reason I'm not blowing my stomach contents all over the dirt is cause there's nothing left in there to come out. Plus, I probably look like crap. Screw it, I'm not dead. I win. Bite me, Skynet.

Next to her, Kate Connor coughed and spat to clear the grit from her throat and mouth. "Okay?" she asked Williams.

Blair nodded, regretting it right away. Her head spun and her stomach rolled, but she kept it to herself. Kate had other people to see about that were in a lot worse condition that Williams was.

"Yeah, yeah, go, go see about the rest. I'm good." She wasn't but Kate didn't have to know that. As soon as the doc turned away, Blair decided it was time to try standing. Figuring there wasn't much point in clinging to what dignity she had left, she clambered awkwardly to her feet, battling the dizziness. Bending over, hands on her knees, Blair concentrated fiercely on her breathing. I will not hurl, I will not hurl, I will NOT hurl! she chanted silently. After about thirty seconds of thinking that she was going to end up decorating her boots with her own bile, she straightened up. It hurt A LOT, but she did it and then took a look around. In the far distance she could see ruins of buildings. That had to be what's left of Las Vegas, she figured. Hopefully, her husband and Barnes were headed there also. Yeah, if Skynet's killer clowns haven't finished them off by now, a traitorous voice whispered in her head. Shut up! Williams commanded. He-they, she belatedly included Colonel Barnes in the thought, are still alive and we are going see them again. She WOULD be reunited with Marcus soon. No thoughts that say different allowed, got it? Blair pulled her aching bones together and went to see what she could do to help her tattered party get mobile so they could start for the dubious shelter of ghost town Vegas.

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"Uuugh" a cross between a low moan and a grunt emerged. His head hurt. Skynet, in its twisted wisdom, left him with the capability for headaches. At least until his computer could jump in and deaden them. Spectacular.

"I think he's waking up" a female voice, childish and unfamiliar, reported.

Marcus slowly opened his eyes doing what he could to protect his extra sensitive orbs from the daytime brightness. Hovering over him he saw a young girl who looked to be about ten years old. Stringy brown hair framed a freckled, timid face.

"I think he's waking up" she said again. Marcus wondered who she was talking to. He didn't feel up to turning his head to find out, not quite yet. Resting his painfully dry eyes, he cracked the lids again at the sound of approaching footsteps. He looked up to see Anthony Barnes hunched over him.

"Bout time" Barnes harrumphed. "You been out of it long enough. Suck it up so we can get going. Been out in the open too long as it is."

The Colonel's grouchy tone hid a thick layer of relief. When the tunnel had starting falling on their heads during the quake, Barnes had reacted purely on instinct, grabbing Wright by whatever clothing he could get his fingers around and trying desperately for the exit. The ample weight of Marcus's machine body proved to be almost too much for him, and Barnes was a big, strong man in his own right. Just as he was beginning to fear he might have to make the choice between abandoning Wright to the cave in or getting crushed along with him, an extra pair of hands appeared and began to help him drag his helpless companion free of immediate danger. His fellow rescuer turned out to be Brandon Weatherly. Surprise, surprise, Barnes thought. With the last Area 51ers fleeing around them, the two men dragged the prone Marcus away from trouble. Once out, they sagged onto the sandy, rock strewn ground in exhaustion, and watched along with the rest as what had once been a pricey money trap for gullible vacationers disappeared forever. They'd waited for the rumbling and shuddering to stop, since, for the moment, they could do nothing more.

"How long?" Marcus questioned hoarsely. His headache was already beginning to fade, and since he felt able to, he sat up, carefully.

"An hour, maybe a little less" Barnes supplied, letting Marcus know how long he'd been unconscious. "You feel up to traveling? We're way too exposed here."

Marcus nodded in assent. He was feeling more his normal self by the moment. It was far more likely he'd pull Barnes down instead, so he wasn't offended when the Colonel didn't offer him a hand up. With a minimal loss of face, he managed to get to his feet.

"What happened to you in there?" Barnes asked, gesturing with his head towards the never to be used again fake mining tunnel. "You folded up and started bawling like somebody was beatin' you."

"I, I, I'm not sure what it was" Marcus answered honestly. "It felt like some, like some kind of, like a vibration in my head, like, I, I don't know, like, something was hammering on my skull." He shivered involuntarily. He'd _never_ felt that before and fervently hoped never to again.

"Radio?" Wright asked.

Barnes shook his head negatively. "Got lost back there when the place started coming down." He'd had to sacrifice it to save Marcus. He had thought to throw the valuable duffel onto his back by its sling, though. At least they still had that.

"Where to?" Marcus inquired. He was more than willing to let Barnes take the lead since he was still collecting himself.

"Back the way we came, thru Las Vegas" Barnes told him. "Don't have a lot of choices here and I get the feeling Skynet's not going to leave us alone just yet. We need cover and that's the closest thing to it. Something's already gone on off that way."

The Colonel pointed southwest. At this distance, thin columns of oily black smoke were the only telltale signs of recent combat. Of what scale they could not know, but some remnants of it were still burning.

If Marcus had still possessed a heart, it would be beating out of his chest by now. In the days he now lived in, indications of a battle meant mostly one thing, some kind of conflict between humans and machines. He thought of his and Barnes's recent holler for help by radio. The only other human contingent in this part of Nevada besides he, Barnes and the 51's would have to be from home base. Connor had sent that help, and by the looks of things, something had gone very wrong before it could get to them. Oh no, no, no, no, please, no. Blair.

"Let's do it" he urged. He'd no more ever be able to explain this impulse than he would the one that had propelled him to find the 'terminator lab' room back at Area 51, but he was solidly certain of two things. One was that Blair had been part of the aborted rescue team and the other was that he needed to get to her right away.

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Dismembered portions of the mangled gunships were utilized to fashion sleds for those too badly wounded to walk. David Perry, Monica Gentry and Kate, after an abbreviated session, unhappily decided the most honorable thing they could do for the six dead was cremation. After retrieving identification, weapons and what small personal keepsakes they could for the families of the deceased, the bodies were piled into the shell of one of the 'copters, doused with what fuel they could coax from the permanently out of commission bird, and set aflame. In their own way, each of the remaining resistance force bid farewell to their lost comrades.

With suspected cracked ribs and a mild concussion, Kate was not about to allow Blair to help pull one of the rescue sleds. The most Williams could talk Dr. Connor into was letting her carry a light load of salvaged supplies wrapped in her ever present leather jacket. Alan Walker also banged up but less so than Blair, was entrusted with the sole functioning radio. In as quick a burst as possible, John Connor had been informed of the aerial contest and its outcome, who still lived and who did not. They got off the air after that. Skynet could be listening.

With the desert heat baking her like a tenderized roasting hen, Blair was so glad to reach the hulking ashen shells of Las Vegas' burned, crumbled casinos and hotels that she would have wept if she had any tears left. She checked. Nope, all out. They settled on the first viable shelter available, getting situated as best they could.

Kate began issuing orders right away. "Break out the water. Everybody gets a good healthy drink. We'll worry about replenishing our supply later." Dehydration could kill them far more efficiently than Skynet and equally without mercy.

"Kate, we need a recon. Get the lay of the place." This from Major Perry. "And find out if Wright and Colonel Barnes are still alive"

"Marcus isn't dead" Blair contributed although not officially invited into the conversation. "I'd know if he was. He's alive, and so is Barnes. They're out there and we have to get to them."

"We have a few problems of our own to worry about right now, Captain Williams" Gentry reminded her, trying to be diplomatic, mindful of the fact that Blair's primary concern was for her husband.

"We can do both" Perry stated. "We have enough people. My units will do the recon, Monica's can look for Wright and Barnes" he suggested.

"Sounds like a plan" Kate concurred," let's make it happen."

"Kate, I'm going with Major Gentry" Blair stated, prepared to argue her case if the physician disagreed, but Kate let her go without a fight. If John was MIA, they'd have to chain me down to keep me from going to look for him, the doc reasoned.

Leaving behind sufficient personnel to provide at least some protection for Kate, the other field medic Allison Chambers and the wounded, the two teams dispersed. Kate watched them go with trepidation. She surveyed their night's lodging with a certain amount of sadness. She'd been to Vegas once, long ago, with her friends, right after she'd gotten engaged to Scott. Sort of a final fling as a single woman. She'd had a blast then. Being here now brought all of that back, no matter how she fought to keep it at bay. She busied herself caring for the wounded, at war with her bittersweet memories.

Kate never imagined that as she administered medications and set broken bones, watching out for those who could not watch for themselves, that from the shadows, something else was watching her.

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Death glided in on the air currents swirling in the afternoon Nevadan sky. Silent and purposeful, its menacing presence entered the arena completely unnoticed by the humans on the ground. They were unaware this fresh form of interfector had come among them, preoccupied with learning and securing the section of terra firma they temporarily claimed as home.

This was a new assassin, a glistening hot off the drafting board way to kill people. Always in search of better means to eradicate its foes once and for all, Skynet's R&D for weapons was literally non-stop. And why shouldn't it be? The AI had no worries about budgets or cost overruns or explaining itself to a Senate committee. What stalked the skies over grid coordinates 36o 10' 30" N / 1150 8' 11" W, formerly known as 'Las Vegas' was its creator's most recent result.

The resistance would have said it looked like a thousand eyed Peregrine. Skynet's designation for it was SKY Model AK-3900 and it was considered a companion to the smaller hunter-killers, which the AI's nemeses were becoming too skilled at eliminating. It locomoted over the target area in a circular motion that might have been likened to the flying saucers of the 1950's sci-fi movies and possessed 3600's of laser cannons always in a position to fire. Every single millimeter was armored. The lenses of its reconnaissance systems were covered over with a clear epoxy that was harder than transparent aluminum. Skynet was endeavoring to reduce the chances that its newest brainchild could be taken out by a precision placed RPG or SAM.

The AK-3900's ultra sensitive detection equipment, in perpetual scan mode, had located and indentified possible enemy combatants below. It analyzed the data, relaying the information to its targeting computers. Firing solutions and combat strategy programmed, it moved to initiate hostilities, obeying the imperative from its master, Skynet.

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Blair was no stranger to walking a combat patrol. She'd gone out countless times with foraging teams or a ground unit short of trained fighters. She knew how to handle herself and she definitely knew what to do with the M-16 she carried in the ready position. Her war calling, however, was as a pilot, and it was her fighter pilot's reflexes that saved her when the 14" x 16" sized Peregrine drone dove out from under the cloud cover, focused on her with killing intensity. Spinning in a blur as it sliced thru the air, the energy bolts from its laser cannons turned everything they touched to melted goo or pulverized dust. Any human unfortunate enough to be hit by one of those deadly beams did not live long enough to suffer for even a few brief seconds. Death was instantaneous.

Only her hair trigger reactions saved Williams when the little aerial executioner narrowed its concentration solely to her, firing continuously as it whirled towards her. Around her, Monica Gentry and the major's ten person unit scattered for cover as the scene turned into the commotion of a battlefield. Some of them made it, some of them didn't. The unlucky few lay sprawled where they'd been struck down, smoking blackened holes in the body's evidence of the Peregrine's murderous intent.

Blair dodged and ducked to save herself as the drone bobbed and wove, never ceasing fire, it targeting computers constantly updated with new firing solutions. It hounded her mercilessly, matching her every move, giving her only split seconds to avoid becoming its victim. She hid behind a piece of wall, the drone blasted her haven away savagely, exposing her. She ducked behind debris, then that too was taken away as refuge. Her would be murderer stalked her relentlessly from position to position, never leaving her more than a second or two to return fire that seemed to bounce off its almost impervious surface.

It was getting harder to breathe. The air was thick with smoke and dust from vaporized stone and plaster and the smells of humans dying or fighting to live. The Peregrine that attacked Blair had many companions, offspring of the parent ship which hovered fifty feet above the combat zone, monitoring the carnage with machine detachment. Here and there, the sheer tenacity of one or two of its human quarry would prevail and a drone would go down, permanently felled by the bio's weapons and unquenchable will to survive. When that happened, the "mother" craft would act according to its programming, revealing Skynet's latest innovation in its war against the humans.

When a sub-drone was released from the body of the larger vessel to take the place of one of its brethren in the fight, another would rotate into its place like teeth in the mouth of a shark, fully functional and ready for action. It need only receive the command and it would unclamp and fly mindlessly down to carry forward the engagement. The matriarchal machine held dozens of these smaller devices within its cylindrical self like spiderlings waiting to be born. The AK-3900's arsenal was extensive, its patience, driven by the data stream from its computers, inexhaustible. It would continue the attack until vanquished or until there was nothing left to kill.

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Nearby, hearing the patrol come under fire the other half of Maj. Gentry's squad raced to their rescue as did David Perry and his soldiers, abandoning their recon. The question was whether or not they would make it in time. They did, only to become vulnerable themselves as new drones were launched into the conflict. Of the two sides, the humans were at the disadvantage, their numbers and ammunition ever so slowly being devoured by attrition.

Blair Williams was no pussy. The crimson war paint applied around her amber eyes crinkled as she grimaced in fury. The stone column she'd been hiding behind was quickly being whittled away by the sub-drone's cannons. With a dozen and a half or more baby AK's tear assing around the confined space she couldn't count on help from Gentry or anyone else on her team. They were too busy trying not to get dead themselves. The hell with it, she thought angrily. You want a piece of me, come and take it. With that, she quit the dubious shelter of the column, which was nearly gone anyway.

"**AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" **She issued a throaty war cry, finger depressed on the trigger of her M-16, going full auto on the flying machine. Ignoring the searing heat of the laser fire zinging close enough to singe her hair and scorch her clothing, she kept up her counteroffensive. Screeching pure hatred, she flung hot lead at her tormentor in a steady stream. The M16A2 was a powerful weapon. Although it was armored, the outpouring of 5.56 grain bullets from the rifle finally took their toll on the miniature, nowhere near as able as the much bigger carrier drone to withstand such prolonged punishment. Its protective casing ultimately splintered like a car's windshield and Blair used the last of her clip to end it altogether.

That gave her all of about ten seconds of respite. With ability to supply fresh resources to the contest at will, the AK-3900 suspended above discharged more drones, one of which headed straight for Blair. She saw the malevolent little metal beast coming for her and reached for another clip only to discover she was out of ammo! Damn! What a crappy time to run out, she thought, disgusted. She drew her Desert Eagle, firing it dry also. The baleful drone zoomed in her direction, spewing laser fire. Hastily making use of a partially crumbled wall, Marcus's face rushed unbidden into her mind. She might die in the next few seconds. She would do it thinking of him. Williams could hear the whine of the machine hunting her. The thing would find her any nanosecond. Very close now and then suddenly it hung over her in the air. She could see the red glow as its gun port prepared to fire, ending her life. Crouched in a ball, hands flung about her head, Blair clenched her eyes tightly shut. She would not look-

Scooping up the M16, Marcus hefted the barrel in both hands like a baseball bat, ignoring the heat generated by its recent firing. Like an MLB all-star aiming for the fences, he swung on the drone about to kill his wife. The saucer shaped liquidator belatedly recognized the new peril it was in and tried to alter its aim to protect itself, but that was not to be. Propelled by his Skynet designed strength and his unadulterated rage at seeing Blair in mortal danger, he connected with a vengeance.

The drone stood no chance. Marcus didn't just kill it, he crushed it along the four other small AK clones it pinged off of on its way to smash against what had once been the wall of a casino's counting room.

They had no time for the passionate reunion he would have preferred. Grasping her hand, he pulled Blair to her feet and gave her mouth a quick peck, putting his body between her and any further harm. The Benelli hummed a martial hymn. Barnes and the Area 51's streamed in, bringing fresh warriors and much needed firepower. Their presence tipped the scales enough to give the resistance a desperately needed break.

"Get down below! Get down below!" Barnes bellowed loudly so he could be heard above the din. "There are levels under this one! Head for the lower levels where these things can't reach you! Go! Go! Go! Let's lay down some cover for these people!" He ordered Wright and the Dreamlanders.

They did just that, covering the retreat of those like Blair who had nothing left to fight with and supplying ammo to those who could still make use of it. The gritty full-blown firefight claimed more casualties but at least now the reinforced humans had some reprieve. They scampered for the basement levels as Barnes, Marcus, the Area 51ers and those resistance still in the fight created a present day Thermopylae impasse for the machines to smash themselves to metal bits against.

"Perry, Gentry! Withdraw! Get your people out of here now!" Barnes directed. Perry wriggled his way thru the bedlam to Barnes's side.

"We've got C-4. We can seal this place so they can't come after us!" he insisted.

"We'll be trapped down there with nowhere to go!" Gentry objected.

"No, we won't" Brandon Weatherly contributed, ducking a shot from a drone. Around him, some of the former Dreamlanders returned fire.

How someone his size could move so silently was a mystery to Marcus. The man had an uncanny ability to sneak up on people.

"Where'd you come from?!" Barnes demanded, then put off hearing the answer to take out one of the mini AK's.

"Does that matter right now?" Weatherly returned. "There's a maze of tunnels underneath these ruins. A whole network of passages. The casinos used to use them to get large amounts of cash and supplies and VIP's from one place to another unnoticed. They mostly survived Judgment Day! It, its' one way we get in and out of the city!" he admitted. "Don't think Skynet cares much about 'em. Never gave us much trouble in there. And even if it does know about 'em, we stand a better chance than up here, with that thing in the sky!" The scientist jerked his head at the AK-3900 still sending forth replacements, looking slightly wild-eyed.

"He's right!" Marcus concurred, Blair's hand still enfolded in his. Having felt her touch again he was loathe to give it up. Brandon Weatherly might have been a cannibal and a Skynet collaborator, but he'd also helped save Marcus's life more than once today. Plus, the man had valuable intel. He and his group knew the territory a lot more intimately than did any of the resistance troops. They could talk later about why Weatherly had chosen to keep the info to himself until this moment.

Barnes could see his choices diminishing geometrically. They were still taking heavy fire. "Alright, do it" he assented to Perry. "You know how to lay a charge?!" he asked Marcus.

"I know a thing or two about it!" Marcus responded, unable to keep the sarcasm totally out of his reply.

"Get to work then! Come people, let's move it!" the Colonel ordered for the rest. They turned to go, everybody equipped to give grief to the machines protecting their backs.

Giving Blair's hand one final squeeze, Marcus released her. Their eyes met.

"I love you" she whispered.

"I love you back, now get out of here. We'll be after you in a minute, go." He turned to help Perry's team lay the explosive trap.

Feeling like she was being dragged away from her husband, Williams turned to follow the others. They had get back to where they'd left Kate. If the malignant flying machines killers and their carrier had discovered the location of John Connor's wife and their under-defended wounded, there was no time to lose.

"How do we keep those things off of us long enough to do what we have to do?!" Marcus asked Perry, leaning in close to the Major's ear in order to be heard.

A fresh batch of drones zoomed in firing in all directions, making Wright's point for him.

"The hard way!" The former Green Beret answered. "Let's give Corporal Medina and Mr. Wright some protection people!" Perry roared, setting the example by fixing a drone with his powerful armament and blazing away relentlessly.

Marcus and the stocky Ramon Medina fanned out, swiftly arming and slapping the blocks of C-4 in strategic locations around the room under the umbrella of their confederate's vicious defense.

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**Author's Note: Well, just one more to go and then I'm done. As always reviews welcome. Please let me know what you think. Thanks, see ya in Chapter 7. **


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: This finally really is the final chapter. It's been a while getting here cause I was writing my other story **_**Viral **_**at the same time I was working on this. No more Terminator stories for me after this (maybe) but its' been fun. **

The Importance of Being Protein- Chapter 7

…Except When It Doesn't

Kate gave the wounded man a syringe full of sedative. There wasn't much more she could do for now. She watched her patient fade out and then moved to the next one. She and Allison Chambers had their hands full. She moved around the room, fully involved in being Doctor Kate Connor. Like everyone else, Kate remained totally unaware of the danger that circled them hungrily, keeping unseen in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike.

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Marcus slammed the door shut and ran like all the terminators Skynet had ever trundled off the assembly line were after him. He reached the metal stairs just as Perry, Medina and the others, two flights below, disappeared from sight. Pelting down the steps at breakneck speed, he decided his present means of flight wasn't nearly fast enough.

The hell with this, he thought. Grabbing the hand rail, he threw his body over the side and jumped for the landing. It wasn't his best effort and he banged his head hard on the dilapidated drywall.

"Oommpf! OW! Hiss! Oww!" he stumbled to his feet, one eye closed, determined to keep moving. He'd better. By his internal count he had about five seconds before the little gifts he and Medina had left for Skynet's peregrine drones went boom. Repeating his earlier stunt, he managed not to conk his head again, and was about to try for a hat trick when his time ran out.

**BLLLLLLLLAAAAAMMMMM!BLLLAAAAAMMMM! **The bombs detonated in a continuous string. The already ruined shell of the building rumbled and shook ominously, bits and chunks of plaster raining down on him, some of them not so small. Gripping the rail hard enough to leave finger shaped impressions, Marcus hung on, hoping the steps under his feet didn't buckle. All around him he picked up the pervasive sound of creaking metal. The former hotel casino's death rattle. Whatever structural integrity Judgment Day had not destroyed the resistance plastic explosives had probably finished off. If he didn't want to be buried in the rubble when the place expired for good, he'd better get a move on. Perry, Gentry and the others had already hot footed it thru the underground passages to safety. Marcus had earned the privilege, so he was last out by choice. Glad Kyle's back at base on communications duty, he considered as he ran. Marcus knew his friend. The kid would have insisted on staying behind with him to make sure nothing followed. Probably would have gotten himself in trouble with Perry.

Marcus raced the last fifty or so feet accompanied by a deep sustained overhead rumble. Everything above ground was gone now.

"Wright!" Perry yelled ahead of him from a doorway, "get in here, now!" the officer motioned manically as if he knew something Marcus did not. Good enough for me, Wright thought. Perry was generally the cool under fire type. If the major thought a situation warranted excitement, it most likely did. Marcus put on another burst of speed, throwing his body thru the doorway past Perry.

"Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!" the major spurred, pushing Marcus ahead of him. "Connor's sending an answer to take care of that thing in the sky. We want to be as far away as we can be when it gets here. Trust me!"

That sounded a lot like good advice, so Wright followed it, although he wondered as he ran what weapon John Connor could possibly have that would make a difference against the massive machine poised in the skies above.

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Only four of the half dozen remained. They were a legacy from someone John had only met once and would not mind if he never saw again. The man had washed up on Connor's metaphorical doorstep about six months after John became the de facto leader of the resistance. He didn't come empty handed. In his head were the coordinates for the location of six Typhon missiles.

Ethan Tate occupied his own separate space in John Connor's mind, quite an accomplishment considering some of the people John had encountered in his travels. A lifetime spook, Tate had sacrificed five wives on the altar of a thirty year career with the CIA. He'd somehow live thru the planetary horror on Judgment Day. Too bad none of the ex Mrs. Tate's could say the same, but Ethan hadn't lost any sleep over it at the time or since. Served 'em right for divorcing him.

Back before the world blew up, Ethan Tate was Langley's presence in the Pentagon. The generals didn't trust him as far as they could pick him up and throw him, but, like any good spy, he'd made it his business to learn their business. He learned enough so that once he'd gotten a toe in the door of the world's most famous five sided office building, they couldn't get him out. That was fine with Ethan since a lot of what he discovered had to do with the Pentagon's "black budget."Buried within the DOD's huge annual public allocation and disguised by cloak and dagger code names, the black budget programs were the Pentagon's thong underwear. Everybody knew they were up there hiding in the crack, but no one talked about them. One of them had once been an obscure piece of Air Force fluff called "Skynet." The Typhon missiles were supposed to be another but a funny thing happened on the way to project development. The eight billion dollars of funding for it were pulled in the name of military cutbacks and the whole idea for the missiles shelved. That was the official unofficial story and everybody concerned stuck to it. That they actually came into being but were never openly acknowledged and added to the U.S. munitions inventory was a secret known only to a handful of hardcore uniformed hawks, and inevitably, Ethan Tate. After Skynet killed three fourth's of the earth's humans, The former intelligence agent had taken one look at the initial leaders of what was left and decided they were too fragmented and ego driven to be trusted with something like Typhon. Then they all got blown away and John Connor stepped out of the pack. Ethan considered, studied Connor for a while and made his choice.

How the spy who came in from the nuclear cold managed to do so with the remnants of a weapons program that was never supposed to have existed stashed in his back pocket Connor might never know and didn't give a damn. One day Tate was there, the next he wasn't, just like that, but when the man was gone Connor had a finite but powerful tool to levy against the machine enemy. With such a limited supply, he only authorized their use when all other choices were closed to him, but this qualified. Sleek and unwavering, one streaked with an efficiency Skynet might have approved of towards a Vegas rendezvous with the AK-3900 that loomed over his trapped wife and her companions.

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"Kate, I need a little help over here" Blair called, trying to restrain the injured man she was tending without causing him further harm. Bruised in a minor way her own self, Williams was helping take care of those worse off than she was.

Before Dr. Connor could respond, medic Allison Chambers was by Blair's side, assessing the patient.

"I'll take care of it" Chambers nodded, drawing what she needed out of her large canvas medical bag. The scavenged item was emblazoned with the barely discernable words "American Red Cross" and a large plus sign shaped symbol.

Blair moved back. Her skills were about air combat, not bleeding, broken people. She had a limited knowledge of field medicine, like almost everyone else, but that's what it was, limited. Assisting with the wounded kept her from fretting too much about Marcus. Where was he? Why hadn't he and the others joined them yet? What was going on?

The battered group of wounded and their caregivers had taken refuge in a small recessed room that would have been considered underground if not for the fact that their roof was mostly missing. The remains of the floor above them was their only covering but it proved to be sufficient. The drones hadn't found them yet. That might be because what was controlling them, the monster AK, had its attention, for the moment, concentrated elsewhere. How soon would that change? What was going on with the group of resistance under fire? How did they fare? The sounds of combat over their heads ebbed and changed, fading then growing louder, then fading again, so it was difficult to tell. Sending someone out to take a look had been vetoed by Kate. Since they weren't mobile, they needed to stay hidden. Posting carefully concealed sentries was the limit of their offensive/defensive capability for now.

A huge roar, the sound of a massive explosion and building collapse several blocks away startled them all, shocking several patients awake. Blair's gut tightened, her anxiety ratcheting skywards. Please Marcus, be alright. I need to see your face, touch you, know you're still in one piece! Please baby, show up! I need to see you! Most people only considered Marcus's machine body. Her heart beat for the man he still was underneath all the Skynet technology. They'd been thru so much. She couldn't lose him now.

Her fears were cancelled when an ill-used door crashed open, admitting first Monica Gentry and her hardest hit squad, then Barnes, Perry and the others in turn. William's eyes combed thru the arriving fighters, desperately seeking that specific face and pair of very blue eyes. She clasped her hands over her mouth and forgot how to breathe for a few seconds when he finally stepped last thru the abbreviated opening. She went to him, winding both arms tightly about his neck. He carefully returned the embrace, kissing her hair. Their universe telescoped to the two of them for a lengthy moment.

"Told you we'd be okay, didn't I?" he soothed gently, caressing her cheek.

Blair gave him a watery smile in return.

"Yeah, your little reunion is real touching and everything, but that beast Skynet sicced on us is still up there, or did you forget about that?" someone vented behind them.

"Not for much longer" Barnes rejoined cryptically. "The cavalry's on the way."

Again Marcus wondered what the reference was to and how much longer they would have to wait for relief.

Not long, but there would be other things to worry about before it arrived.

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"Kate, how fast can you get everybody ready to move?" Barnes asked quietly.

Kate Conner thought for a moment. Reluctant to move any of her patients, she understood there wasn't much choice. They needed to be leaving Las Vegas, and quickly. It would be difficult under these conditions, but that was what they had left to them.

"Allison and I are going to need help but I think we can be ready to go in ten minutes" she replied.

"Okay, get the ball rolling" Barnes told her. "Boss man's air mailing some support."

Kate knew what that meant. She was privy to the Typhon secret. She nodded once to Barnes and then turned to get Chambers attention.

Marcus did what he could to help while trying to keep an eye on Blair at the same time. He was well acquainted with her stubborn streak. Beautiful, smart and independent, his wife would yank out her uterus with a pair of rusty pliers and no pain killers before admitting her injuries were slowing her down. She'd just grit her teeth, clamp down on the pain and keep going until it smacked her in the face, so it was up to him to make sure it didn't get that far.

Gathering up supplies a foot from where Blair was, Marcus's extra sensory hearing detected a low pitched animal grumble. He slowly grasped her arm, eyebrows raised. The unspoken question _do you hear that too?_ The alarmed widening of her eyes told him she had indeed.

"What the hell is that?!" Blair's tone revealed a combination of panic and adrenaline. Her combat psyche was gearing up for a possible fight.

"Something I didn't think we'd have to worry much about with a group this large, but I might have been wrong about that" Marcus conceded. So much had taken place in the interim his and Barnes brief frightening encounter with the tiger had been almost forgotten. At least it had by him. He'd also assumed the tabby would avoid such a large gathering of people, but maybe the sight of so much potential prey was too tempting for the big stripped cat, as frustrated as it sounded, to pass up.

Ignoring her protests he pulled Blair over and behind him so that his specialized physique was between her and the feline, which he could only hear, but didn't have eyes on yet. If the thing pounced, he wanted it to go for him instead of her.

"Hey you know I-" Blair started but didn't get to finish her statement. Using his weight to maneuver her, Marcus backed her away from the hungry sounding snarl, which grew more pronounced, loud enough now to be heard by the others.

"Tell me that's not what I think it is" Barnes hissed, trying to cover all the angles. He drew his side arm, craning his neck nervously.

"What do you think it is?" Kate demanded.

"**RRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRR!"**

She started violently. "Never mind, I got it."

"We ran into it our first night here" Marcus supplied. "I was kind of hoping that'd be the end of it, but I guess not. How hungry do you think it has to be to risk an attack on a party this large?" he asked Barnes.

"What, what, what is it?" someone voiced nervously, gun in hand aimed toward the sound.

"Tiger" Marcus supplied in a near whisper, still shielding Blair. He turned and angled his head, using his intricate hearing to track the animal as it moved, stalking unseen. "Big male, right Brandon?" he directed the question to Weatherly.

The 51 boss swallowed and nodded several times, intimidated by the tiger's proximity. He'd never been this close to it, having always taken for granted that it wouldn't risk attacking a massed group. "I thi… I think its lair is around here somewhere. I think it uses the… I think it uses the tunnels to get around."

Well, that explained why Weatherly hadn't brought up using the underground passages before now. It also told Marcus how kitty love had slipped up so suddenly on him and Barnes their first night in Vegas.

"A tiger? How did a tiger-?" Kate began to ask.

"Shush, Kate, quiet" Marcus insisted, still employing his superior audio abilities to tell him where the cat was…which right now was behind him! Damn! How had it done that so fast? The thing was incredibly quiet!

He swung around, forcing Blair, who by now had her huge Desert Eagle in hand, to move with him.

"**RRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRR!"**Its' frustrated cry circled the room. Curiously, it sounded really pissed off too. At least it did to Marcus. Probably having trouble deciding which one of us to eat. Decisions, decisions, he snorted silently, with macabre humor.

"Why hasn't it attacked yet? It should have tried something by now" Barnes wondered aloud.

"**RRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWWWWRRRMMMMMM MMMMMMMM!"** The beast's irritated vocals had definitely switched tone from rapacious to fuming. It didn't sound like it wanted to chow down on them anymore. Now it just sounded mad, Wright thought. Really, really mad. He didn't know what made it change, but it had. Before he and Barnes narrowly avoided a physical confrontation. This time, there'd be blood.

With a final scream of bone rattling rage, the immense animal hurtled towards him and Blair in a blinding blur of orange and black! Marcus pivoted, struggling to rotate the Benelli into firing position and protect Blair at the same time. He stumbled backwards, forcing her to move with him! Marcus fired, but the cat's speed made him miss and before he could adjust the enormous beast was on top of him, knocking the shotgun out of his hands! With Wright, Blair and the tiger so entwined, their armed companions were helpless to intervene for fear of hitting the wrong target.

Smothered by the furry weight and acrid stench, Marcus tried to make himself a blanket over the woman he was protecting, feeling the razor sharp claws carve grooves thru his clothes and skin down thru conduit and wiring right to the metal bones. He couldn't breathe! He couldn't move! He could feel Blair's terror and hear her muffled cries. She was more trapped than he, and he desperately fought for them both against the big cat's might. It was nearly overwhelming! Nothing Wright had ever experienced could have prepared him for this display of pure power. He'd duked it out with all manner of Skynet machinery since his and Connor's battle with the T-800 prototype in San Francisco; nothing the AI had ever produced could touch this! He had to do something. He could feel he and Blair were running out of time. The tiger would soon decide on a final blow. It might not be the end of him. His hyper alloy skull just might be enough protection for his vulnerable human brain and partially artificial neck construction enough to keep him from a killing bite but if it wasn't then the beast would have a clear path to Blair. He couldn't let it come to that.

Teeth bared, Marcus gathered himself aware he would need all the strength he could summon to push the animal off. He heard the scrapeof claws as the tiger's curved stiletto's shredded him again and again leaving his skin in bloody ribbons. The enormous head hovered above him and for a second all Marcus could see were the three inch yellowed canines. He feared his head was about to end up in the cat's mouth but then, by some incomprehensible miracle, it was gone! Fur, fury and all, the tiger was suddenly off of them!

Wright rolled away from Blair, checking visually to make sure she was as unharmed as possible. He lunged for his shotgun but stayed his hand before it reached the weapon. The huge Bengal was no longer interested in him, Blair on any of the other humans in the room. Marcus's eyes flared in astonishment at the jaw dropping sight!

Three feet from where he and his wife sprawled in a bloody, gasping, painful heap, the five hundred pound master of its' domain was ensnared in a do or die battle with the true object of its' ire, a T-800. The final parting gift of Skynet from Area 51, the terminator had followed the humans it was being sent to kill to this spot, waiting for the command from its' AI master to complete the task. Patiently, by order of Skynet, it lingered in a dark alcove, keeping deadly watch on Kate Connor, Allison Chambers and the wounded resistance fighters, a grave, silent menace. The supercomputer desired to wait until the resistance force coalesced back into a single unit before releasing the 800 and redirecting the AK-3900 to a new line of attack. Based upon its' psychological estimation of John Connor, killing Connor's wife might have ascertainable impact upon the human's leader's strategic and tactical abilities for some time to come. Successful termination of the rouge unit referred to as "Marcus Wright" could also have a marked effect on the course of the war, at least in the short term. So the terminator was ordered to hold until the circumstances fit Skynet's parameters. It took more time than preferred, but with its' targets all in one place the AI sent the authorization.

_[:TERMINATE PRIORITY TARGETS KATE CONNOR AND MARCUS WRIGHT. __PROCEED WITH SUBSEQUENT TERMINATION OF ALL OTHER AVAILABLE TARGETS:]_

But Skynet had not factored the presence of the consummate hunter into the equation. This animal had been born after Judgment Day, the result of a mating between two of the conflagration's ultimate survivors. It held no worry of humans, but it had learned to fear and in its' animal manner, hate the undead creatures which replaced them. Lifelike but not alive, the things which looked human but were not roamed the tiger's hunting grounds without reservation, rarely resting, never sleeping, killing any human they came across but leaving all else untouched. Its' intelligence of another bent, the cat had learned very quickly that if it avoided the roving not humans, they would leave it alone to hunt and procreate. That suited it. It did not like them. The not humans were no good for food and stank of something that caused the tiger's guts to roil in confused revulsion. Mostly the male and its' mate, whose territory adjoined his own were able to stay their distance from the not humans. It didn't always work out that way though. There came the day when the young of its mate had wandered blindly into the path of what they would never understand was a patrolling T-800. Their mother had not been near enough to prevent them from obeying hardwired instincts. Both yearling cubs attacked, seeking their first kill. She'd raced to their aid, but arrived too late. Both were dead. The male had later prowled the scene, detecting the scent of his offspring's killer from their mangled corpses. From that time, he had skirted the not humans assiduously, doing everything possible to come into no contact with them. Now he recognized them for what they were, slayers of his kind. His primitive and cunning brain acknowledged the not humans as a threat, to be avoided if possible, but if not, to be fought to the death.

The cat had been stalking the humans for some time, evaluating their potential as prey. They often invaded its' territory, but always in numbers so many that it hesitated to attack. The sticks they held in their hands spat thunder at it and things which burned and caused much hurt. The male preferred prey which was more easily subdued and there was enough of that about that it usually let the humans pass thru unmolested. But it had been some days since its last successful hunt and it was beginning to let go its normal inhibitions. Hunger sublimated caution. It needed to _feed_! If it could separate and drag one of the smaller ones away before the rest could use their firesticks, it would finally be able to satisfy its raging appetite. So it began following them, hugging the ground and hunching its body to remain invisible, using the rubble and piles of bones and broken, rusted vehicles to camouflage its presence. A hunter nonpareil, the male had no trouble keeping up with its quarry, even splitting off to follow an alternate route thru the darkness of the underground, where it usually slept during the daytime hours, for a while before acquiring them once more. The noise of their conflict was terrifying. It had no way to discern what the AK-3900 was, but instinctively perceived the machine overhead as a thing of danger and stayed hidden from it. Shuddering with agitation, the predator bore witness of the fight, escaping unseen when it had the chance by one of its favored bolt holes to the haven of the tunnels, resuming their trail as they fled into the below.

As their "herd" grouped together again, the tiger selected a victim, determining to separate its smaller choice from the larger companion which stayed close by its side. Preparing to make the kill, the feline was distracted by movement behind its intended meal. The cat's eyesight was far better than its' olfactory. It knew. The movement was a not human.

An intuitive, unreasoning sound traveled from the animal's massive chest, up thru its' throat, erupting outward in the rumbling basso eventually heard by Marcus, Blair and the rest of the resistance fighters. Tiger killer! Destroyer of young! _**ENEMY!**_ Kill the not human! Protect! Make it no more! The male leapt, arsenal deployed, dismissing both the human it had been intending to make food of and the bigger one, which smelt of a bewildering combination. It savaged the human which was also a not human (?), momentarily enraged at it, then forgot that one to concentrate on the not human. Its' brain drove the command home! _**KILL THE NOT HUMAN!**_

Marcus figured every prizefight or MMA match this city had ever hosted all lumped in together would not have equaled this one. It was the ultimate heavyweight bout, the card to end all cards. The titanic struggle froze the openmouthed watchers wherever they stood or lay.

Using all of its tools and muscle the tiger unleashed a frenzy of destruction on the 800. _**SLASH! BITE! RIP! KILL THE NOT HUMAN!**_

The T-800 responded to the onslaught, dropping the plasma rifle from its hands to meet the challenge. The machine's computer and heads up display indentified and relayed the information**[:**Panthera tigris_,_quantified threat level: Significant**:** If allowed to continue, the terminator's computer calculated an animal of this mass could do enough damage to severely compromise the 800's mission. Non-optimal. It wrapped tree trunk arms around the cat's mid-section and began trying to squeeze the life out of its attacker. The deadly hug grew tighter and tighter around the clawing, snarling male's body, and despite its ferocity and brawn, began to have an effect. The huge cat started to weaken, its vicious swipes and bites slowing. Its roars and yowls turned from anger to fear as the animal's brain communicated that it was in trouble and that which it had attacked was not only danger to its young but to the male itself! Frantically, the beast tried to escape the constricting grasp, turning its efforts from offensive to defensive in a desperate effort to get away from the not human's killer hold! Bloodied and shredded as it was, the T-800 ignored the tiger's savage squirming, impassively increasing the pressure like a python suffocating prey. Skynet's overriding imperative**:** TERMINATE.

The human spectators to the once-in-a-lifetime contest got a rude reminder that they'd not been forgotten by Skynet when a dozen peregrine drones zoomed in thru the gaping spaces in the roof, spinning at them with red blasts of killing laser fire. Marcus, Blair, Barnes and the rest of the resistance force fought back against the murderous little machines, joined by the group from Dreamland. The room resounded with the sounds of battle with the roars and cries of the tiger/terminator combat as backdrop. With inhuman persistence, the drones pressed the attack, blending into a swarm as more and more of them were added to the fight by the AK-3900 which would soon be directly over them again.

Coughing as her lungs rejected the choking smoke Kate Connor aimed and took out the drone descending on the helpless patient she was defending. Bits of metal flew off the ruined machine as it crashed to the floor, forever dark only to be replaced by another and then another! The things were a damn never ending story! They had to evacuate, she knew, but pinned down like this were all but helpless. Hurry John, she pleaded silently to her husband as she killed another drone. We need that help right now! They were out of time.

If persons long wed really did learn to read one another's minds, then John Connor read his wife's over the distance that separated them. Kate had barely completed the thought when the Typhon missile he'd sent to her rescue finally came streaking out of the east to penetrate the hull of Skynet's whopping automaton with explosive punishment! Kate held her breath. Would it be enough!? It had to be! But would it!?

She needn't have worried. The resulting destruction bore fruit beyond all imaging. The Typhon missiles drew their name from the mythological hundred headed Grecian "father of all monsters." This modern child of war did him proud. For three interminable seconds nothing happened. Then the missile's multiple warheads detonated throughout the interior of the AK like the venomous tendrils of their ancient sire, laying waste to everything in their path. They triggered an irreversible domino effect that devoured Skynet's innovation from within. It no longer dispatched drones and as it died those already released were now without direction and became easier to pick off. The humans gained the upper hand but they weren't going to get the chance to get happy about it.

Searching as he blasted the last drone, Marcus's extraordinary eyes picked up the parent vessel. About a half a city block away, its forward movement had ceased. The monster craft wobbled alarmingly in the air and he could see a faint glow overtaking the superstructure. _**CLICK!**_ Uh oh. He'd seen something else created by Skynet die that very same way, recently. This was going to be much, much uglier than an exploding terminator.

"Grab everybody and everything you can and go, go, GO! **MOVE! GET BELOW! GET BELOW!"** he bellowed. "That thing is going to come down right on top of us! We gotta get underground, **NOW****!**"

The dire urgency in his voice was enough to spur his listeners into action. Unquestioning, they abandoned what gear they had to so those who were able could help anyone unable to get mobile under their own power. A flood of people flowed thru the entrance to the tunnels, heading down, burrowing for their very lives into the bowels of the earth.

Covering their retreat, Marcus spared a fleeting look over his shoulder in time to see the T-800 toss the mortally injured Bengal to the side like a gutted stuffed animal and scoop up its plasma rifle. The terminator refocused on the only other enemy present. The only thing standing between it and the fleeing, tattered, low on ammo resistance fighters and expatriate Area 51's. That would be me, Marcus thought grimly. Well, isn't that special. He knew he had a mountain of misdeeds to make up for from his past but sometimes he got the feeling karma was enjoying the job just a little too much. The eight started for him but had barely taken a step when an unholy groan issued from the enormous machine in the sky. Giving up at last, the thrashing vessel turned on its side and plummeted. The leading edge of the doomed ship arrived, bulldozing the building's skeletal remains. The terminator forgot Marcus as it calculated its odds of survival determining them to be less than ten percent.

"What are you doing Marcus?!" Blair shouted at him from about fifty feet ahead. She waited with David Perry and three other resistance fighters, unwilling to go any further without him. "Run! Come on!" she waved frantically, wincing at the pain it caused her bruised ribcage.

What the hell _am_ I doing? Marcus considered, giving himself a mental kick. Does a building _literally _have to fall on your dumb ass!? Run stupid! He ran, checking behind him for the terminator, but there was nothing. Maybe it didn't make it out, he thought hopefully. Maybe karma decided to take some time off after all.

The traumatized hulk around him creaked and shuddered, the building surrendering to the inevitable as he reached his wife and Perry. The group pounded down several flights of creaking metal stairs as the enormity of a total structural collapse took place above ground. Clouds of billowing smoke and flame mixed with huge chunks of metal, plaster and concrete the like of which had not been seen since Judgment day ballooned upwards as the AK pancaked and burned, becoming the Bengal's funeral pyre. The fire burned for hours.

**TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT TTTTTTTTTT**

His arm around his exhausted sleeping wife, Marcus Wright stared into to the fire, seemingly hypnotized by the dancing flames. He wasn't under any kind of spell. He just had a lot on his mind. Like what was he supposed to do about Brandon Weatherly and his happy little group of Skynet collaborating cannibal refugees from Area 51? What should he tell Connor? How _much_ should he tell Connor? How much should he tell any of them? Did he have the right to keep all or part of the truth from Connor or anyone else? Was it _right_ to do that? Moral quandaries were relatively new territory for him and he had no idea what to do about this one. The problem of Barnes was especially difficult. How did you tell a man that he'd unknowingly consumed part of one of his former comrades? What was Marcus supposed to say "Uh, Barnes you know when your girlfriend screamed 'I want you inside me!' she didn't mean it the way you thought she did." The Marcus of that other life had been cold enough to say exactly that but he wasn't that man any longer in so many more ways than one. He couldn't look Colonel Anthony Barnes in the eye and smugly break the news that Barnes had made a meal of someone he'd once known and fought beside. Marcus knew he didn't have that in him anymore, that Marcus was long gone and good riddance to him. What about the rest of them, the rest of his fellow resistance? It had been a slow evolution, and there were still those who would never welcome him, but mostly he felt a part of the whole, like he'd finally been accorded a place among them. What would happen if he, Blair, Barnes, Kate and the rest returned to their home base with Weatherly and his group in tow and then it all came out? And he was sure it would. There was zero chance something like that would not eventually reveal itself, even if he chose not to. Marcus thought he knew what the reaction would be from the resistance fighters when the fate of their family and friends at the hands of Brandon Weatherly and the Area 51ers was discovered. His own dark history included murder. He understood why, pre-Judgment day, when someone was accused of that crime, it was said they had bodies on them. It was because that's how it felt. The load never lightened and it would never go away. Every time he opened his eyes to begin a new day of his new life, the weight of those three bodies and all the other deaths he was responsible for settled down on him all over again. He didn't want that for any of his new friends or family, they already enough to carry thanks to Skynet. So what was he supposed to do? What should he say? How did he handle this? As certainly as he held the woman he loved in his arms he would have to tell them all something, but what? He rested his head against the cool rock and closed his eyes, not sleeping, but thinking.

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"Mr. Wright we need to talk."

Marcus opened his eyes to find Brandon Weatherly standing over him, looking guarded. Wright stared coolly at the principal source of his deliberations. The silence stretched out, making Weatherly uncomfortable. The former leader of Area 51 looked away.

"Please" the scientist added, turning the statement into a request.

I'll just bet I know what you want to chat about Brandon, Marcus thought to himself. "So talk" he replied to the other man.

"Privately, please" Weatherly said, beginning to twitch nervously. "It's…please" he repeated.

Taking his arm from around Blair, Marcus gently eased her to the ground without waking her, leaving his jacket behind for her to use as a pillow. The two stepped far enough away to have a one-on-one conversation but weren't totally isolated.

"This is as private as its going to get Weatherly" Marcus informed the other chilly. "Whatever you've got to say spit it out."

Weatherly had a couple of false starts, mouth opening and closing without saying anything. Clearing his throat he tried again. "I need to ask. What…what are you going to tell John Connor about us, about what…about Area 51 and, and what happened to you and Colonel Barnes while you were there?"

Crossing his arms over his chest Marcus gave the man a look that in the past had made some others want to turn and run. Brandon Weatherly looked ready to take flight. Nice to know I still got it, Marcus reflected with cynical amusement. "Well, now, Brandon" Wright didn't bother to soften the hostility in his voice, "what do you think I should tell him? Huh? Connor sent me and Barnes to find out what was eating his missing troops" Marcus told Weatherly, noting the barely detectable flinch at the word "eating." "The man wanted to know why his soldiers kept disappearing without a trace once they hit Groom Lake. And guess what? I found that out, so give me one good reason why I shouldn't tell him. You turned our people over to Skynet for it to use as lab rats! You knew what it would do to them, what kind of hell they would be put thru, what kinds of torture and you did it anyway. You suckered them in, letting them think the place was really back in human hands and then turned them over like the whipped little traitors you are." Marcus's reply was totally without mercy. He hadn't been this furious about something in a good while. You think you know what I know, Brandon, Marcus mused, but you don't.

"We did what we had to" Weatherly belatedly tried to bluster. "We did what that damn AI forced us to do!" he insisted. "We had no choice, our families were hostages! You…you don't know what it…you, you can't, you can't know what it was like, what we had do to survive. You can't-besides, your Colonel Barnes, he killed Kim!" Brandon Weatherly blurted, trying to go on the attack. It was a weak one, something that never worked with Marcus Wright. "He murdered he-!"

"Stop!" Marcus hissed from between clenched teeth. He and Barnes would never be pals, might never have more than a distant wariness around one another, but Marcus knew the truth. Barnes was no murderer. "Barnes didn't kill her and we both know it. I'm not for sure who did, but my money's on that whack job Kayla. After she did Kim, she tried to do the same thing to me."

"K, kk, Kayla tried to kill you?" Weatherly appeared genuinely surprised. He was confused. He'd known Tracey didn't make it out of Area 51 but hadn't had the chance to find out why.

"Yeah Brandon, she did" Marcus moved up, getting into Weatherly's face. "Only she didn't get that far. One of your T-800's snapped her neck like a dry twig before she got the chance to make the first cut."

"They weren't our-" Marcus's words sank in. "How, how much…what do you know?"

Wright was acid and blunt. "You mean did I find your terminator body shop? See your people buzzing around like worker bees? Yeah I did. Tell me something Brandon, did it stop with routine maintenance or did you get naked and go down on 'em while you were at it?"

"How dare you-" Weatherly's choked reply was full of guilty rage. The color returned as his face reddened. "I told you we did what we had to, what Skynet forced us to do!" The scientist forgot himself enough to grab at Marcus's clothing, a bad idea.

Marcus pushed him off roughly. Weatherly fell. Marcus stood above him, eyes narrowed. "Did it force you to put humans on the menu too?" he grated savagely, almost loud enough to be overheard. He watched Weatherly's face go white as the Dreamland leader realized how much of the complex's secrets Marcus had scoped out.

"Yeah, that's right Brandon" Marcus sneered as the one time head of the Groom Lake facility cowered at his feet, "I found your frozen stores too."

Weatherly shook. Their confrontation started to draw a crowd.

"Marcus, what's going on, what is this?" Kate's question, from behind him. Barnes was there too, and Blair, wiping the sleep from her eyes. Resistance and the Area 51ers gathered round, the two groups seemed leery of drawing too closely together.

Marcus's disgust welled up threatening to stifle his self-control. He reached down and easily hauled the two hundred plus pound Weatherly to his feet with one hand. He shoved the Dr. in the direction of some fellow 51 alumni. Startled they barely caught him. The hell with it, Wright thought, maybe it's better to let it happen sooner than later.

"Why don't you ask him?" he told Kate, jerking his head in Weatherly's direction.

"I'm asking _you_" Kate stressed the last word. Her clear blue eyes cut into Marcus.

"Kate, I-"

"**Look out!" **Brandon Weatherly screamed, throwing himself at Kate, tackling her to the ground a split second before the crimson heat of the T-800's plasma rifle filled the space where her body had just been.

It's clothes in rags, and the majority of the skin on its' face and body either missing or hanging in bloody strips, the terminator stepped in the open, weapon blazing, programming driving it to fulfill the mission given to it by Skynet. Portions of its hyper-alloy endoskeleton glinted in the firelight as it reacquired Kate with its baleful glare. Marcus closed with it, grappling with the machine hand to hand. He knew he wasn't as strong as the eight but was trying to give the others time to mount a defense. It threw him off and he landed with a painful thud on the hard ground. He pushed to his feet, bloodied, to rush back in.

Hammering away with his M4, Barnes shoved Kate forcefully out of the line of fire. Blair grabbed Connor's wife pulling the red headed doctor further to safety behind a large rock. The pilot fired, the Desert Eagle's deep throated bark sounding repeatedly.

**PPPPFFTTTTTTTTTTTT! BLAAAAAATTTTT! PPPPFFTTTTTTTTTTTT! BLAAAAAATTTTT! BLAAAAAATTTTT! BOOM! BOOM**! The resistance armament blasted at the terminator full on, every round rocking it with lethal intent. The 800 was blocked for the moment from making a further attempt at killing Kate but refused to go down despite the incredible assault it was under. A heavy round from someone's weapon blew off the hand that clutched the rifle and both hand and gun went spinning off into the darkness. Undeterred, the T-800 rushed the nearest human, disarming the man with contemptuous ease. It gripped the firearm in its massive paw, head swiveling, red glowing eyes searching for and finding its primary target. It started for Kate again, ignoring everything and everyone else. Bits of blood and skin flew off it, rounds pinging like pinballs. It wavered under the impact but did not stop so intent was it to terminate Kate.

**BLAAAAAATTTTT! BLAAAAAATTTTT! BLAAAAAATTTTT! BLAAAAAATTTTT! PPPPFFTTTTTTTTTTTT! **They kept at it.

"UUuuuggggghhhhh!" Marcus charged it again but this time not unarmed. In a single leap he was on top of the 800. Jamming the Cestus III thermate grenade he had cupped in a palm into an exposed cavity in its neck with every ounce of force he could call on, he pulled the pin, arming it, and rolled away. In a brilliant flash, the device activated, turning night into noon, temporarily blinding the human defenders. The four thousand degree mini sun created by the grenade fused the terminator's internal circuits, melting the CPU into slag. The machine went dark and toppled like a timbered redwood, finished.

Blair holstered her gun and rushed over to Marcus, while Kate and Allison Chambers tended to the fresh batch of wounded created by the fight. They didn't have long. Kate's would-be assassin was a loner that, incredibly, _had _made it out of the collapsed building and tracked them all the way from Vegas, but if it had broadcast its position, others would be on the way. Night travel was a huge risk, but they had no choice so once they were patched up enough, they made the trek.

Four hours hence, holed up in the pitifully bedraggled scraps of a small outlet mall, the contused, lacerated combined group of resistance and Dreamland castaways waited anxiously for the assistance promised by radio. Some slept, others prepared rations or helped any other way they could.

Marcus was awake. He didn't really feel the need for sleep and had the ability to put it on hold for several days if necessary, so he did that now. He kept watch from a narrow window of what had once been the manager's office of a discount store. Wright knew who's office it was because the manager, or, more correctly, what was left of the manager, was still there when he inspected the room as a possible lookout spot. Flesh long decayed or eaten away by hungry critters, the skeleton still wore moldy ragged black pants, what had not for many years been a white buttoned shirt and a bedraggled orange vest bearing the discount chain's logo. The filthy shirt had dark brown stains that Marcus recognized as blood and the ribcage was punctured with holes. It looked as if the man had mistakenly viewed his office as a refuge when Skynet turned the machines loose after Judgment Day. Or maybe other humans had done it. No one would ever know for certain. Wright bent to read the faint lettering of the plastic name badge.

"Bob Stepanovich… **Welcome**, **How May I Enrich Your Shopping Experience**?" he recited. "You can get out of my chair Bob" cracked Marcus. Divesting the indifferent Bob of his long time perch Wright settled in to wait for first light and their hopefully boring ride home. He was thinking some boredom might be a beautiful thing right about now.

"Help, someone please" One of the Area 51 women pleaded. Kate Connor responded automatically, bringing her medical bag. "Please" the woman asked, "can't you do something for him, anything?" she begged sadly. The surviving members of his group had been gathered around him for hours, talking softly, apparently engaged in some sort of debate, which was now over. They parted to make room for Kate.

"Him" was Brandon Weatherly, his head resting cradled in the woman's lap, labored breathing testament to his agony. A gaping hole in his lower left side still bled slightly. He'd taken the shot from the terminator meant for Kate. Out of pain meds, Kate could only administer a sedative, but Weatherly resisted.

"Get Wr..Wri…Wright…I need to talk to Wright, please" he gasped, the effort costing him dearly. The dying Weatherly knew his life was measured in minutes.

"You shouldn't be trying to talk to anyone" Kate admonished softly. "You need to save your strength" she added, giving false comfort, all she had left for her patient.

"For what?" Weatherly managed a bitter snort of a laugh. "I ain't gonna need it much longer anyway, we both know that doc. Please get him for me, please."

Kate sent for Marcus. When he arrived, Weatherly used much of his waning energy to insist the others back off so only Marcus could hear his whispered words.

"Wright, Wright you gotta listen to me. Please you gotta listen" Weatherly could feel his last seconds slipping away.

"I'm listening" Marcus told him shortly, unsympathetic. "What is it? What do you want, Brandon?"

"Most of 'em…m,mm, most of 'em…" He gasped motioning with his eyes to where the Area 51's stood clustered together, "Most of…em, th…th..they did…they didn't know. N…no..not all of it. They didn't know about what happened to the resistance people we took in. Th…they…didn't know. And the…they didn't…know…ab…about the mmmm….meat…wha…what th…they were eating…Please, you gotta believe…mm….mm…me! Most of the ones…that did…they're dead now..The others, they didn't know…Not the kids, they…didn't know. You gotta believe me."

"Let's say I do" Marcus whispered back. "What about it? What do you want me to do with it?" He was disinclined to do this man any favors.

"The…they want to lll, le…leave. Go…on their own…not back with you to your…ba…ba…base. Please, let…'em go. Pl…ple…please, let…let..'em go, please. Don't say wha…wha…they didn't know…I swear mmm…most of 'em didn't know" Weatherly gasped out. He plucked at Marcus sleeve, a pink froth appeared at the corner of his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head and Brandon Weatherly died.

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The approaching transports (ground this time, the loss of three gunships was an expensive transaction) appeared like growing black dots on the horizon. The resistance forces gathered for the journey home, readying the wounded to be loaded first. Marcus watched for a moment then turned to look in the other direction, seeing the remainder of the 51ers heading into an uncertain future.

Following a lengthy and occasionally heated confab involving Kate, Barnes, Perry, Gentry and Marcus, the decision had been reached to allow the ex-Dreamland occupants to go their own way. Although their complicity in the disappearance of the resistance platoon's had been confirmed by Marcus and grudgingly admitted to by a couple of the 51's, some hard facts still had to be faced. Gentry pointed out the logistical headache of dragging twenty-five prisoners back to their home base. And after we get them there, she further argued, what's next? Put 'em on trial? Then what, stand 'em against a wall and shoot 'em, even the kids? The base had a stockade, but no serious penal facility to speak of, so that possibility was dismissed out of hand. Someone else brought up the problem of determining which of the Dreamlanders were most guilty. Leaving out much of what he'd discovered, (like the cannibalism) Marcus put forth Weatherly's dying declaration that the majority of the 51's were mostly clueless about what had befallen the resistance troops. Barnes glared at him, thrown by Wright's defense of people that had probably only been prevented from killing the Colonel by Marcus's timely rescue, but in the end did not object. Marcus saw them off, wondering what he was releasing into a world that had trouble aplenty already. He'd resolved his personal conflict by deciding to tell Connor all, omitting nothing. It had been his and Barnes original mandate and Marcus figured he owed the resistance leader the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Connor could make up his own mind how much to tell the others. Marcus would step out of it after that.

Over her half hearted protests, Marcus picked Blair up, carrying her in his arms to the waiting transport.

"I can walk you know" she muttered, head resting in the crease between his shoulder and neck.

"Yes, I know" he replied, "but do you really want to?" he teased.

She snuggled closer. "No, um um" she mumbled.

Marcus grinned and kissed her ear. "Hey" it hit him suddenly, "you cut your hair!"

Blair raised her head to look at him and then over his shoulder at Kate. Williams rolled her eyes. "Now he notices?" she said to Kate in a long suffering tone. Kate laughed, shaking her head.

"Well" Marcus rejoined, somewhat defensively, "I _have_ been a little busy."

THE END

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**Author's note: Well that is it. All she wrote, literally. Hope you liked it. I did. Reviews are always welcome. As I said before, pretty sure this is it, but I have thoroughly enjoyed writing these stories. One more thing: Just-A-Crazy-Man, if you're out there, gimme a holla. See ya. **


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